<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Happy Birthday by chezchuckles</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185686">Happy Birthday</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles'>chezchuckles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Army Castle [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Castle (TV 2009)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Army Castle, Army Spy, F/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 03:34:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>56,580</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27185686</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Castle manages to show up for an important date.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kate Beckett &amp; Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Army Castle [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945063</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Portions of this are unwritten, as I skipped some of it during the initial writing and never went back to fill it in. So, sorry? I skip the boring parts.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He knew he looked bad; he knew it looked bad. Why he’d bought her flowers this time - something to have as a distraction when she opened the door.</p><p>He hadn’t expected the bombing in Dublin or the riot afterwards; he’d been caught in the middle, an undercover man treated as an enemy combatant, and he looked fucked up.</p><p>He was so tired. He’d refused to wait for treatment, had only wanted to get back, get home. His jaw ached where it was bruised, his ribs were tight from a rain of kicks, and the gash on his upper arm probably should’ve had stitches.</p><p>He’d gotten orders to wait for his father and receive treatment, but the emergency medical techs at the station in Dublin had done everything that could be done. He didn’t see how a fucking B12 shot was going to make this one better. Or whatever the hell was in those shots his father gave him.</p><p>Someone had fucked him up, blown his cover, and it wasn’t Castle’s fault that the riot had erupted. He was going to have to look into that, figure out who screwed up their operation, but for now, he wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around Kate and bury himself inside her.</p><p>He still wasn’t used to being the first one home.</p><p>Not that her apartment was his own home, really, and not that he was here consistently enough to know, but whenever he made it back to New York, day or night, he rarely found her here these days.</p><p>Castle placed the vase of flowers on the little table beside her couch, and then he carefully toed off his shoes and left them there, neatly behind the chair. He padded down the hallway in his black socks and found her bedroom in its orderly bohemian disorder, as always. He folded his coat over the chair as well, knowing she’d be able to see it from the front door, that it would clue her in.</p><p>It was one in the morning, but that didn’t bother him. She had been attached as an officer with Vice and it required odd hours; he knew this was a necessary step in her life-plan. He’d negotiated a hesitant compromise with her about her lack of back-up. He figured if she needed help, she at least had the detectives and officers in Vice who knew where she was and what she was doing.</p><p>Castle placed his backpack just inside the door of her bedroom, taking pains to ensure that everything was in its place, that he wasn’t disturbing her home. She’d made a few comments about his shoes or his pants before, and he was beginning to understand what it was she needed, how to be good for her and not an irritation.</p><p>He shrugged off his shirt and unbuttoned his pants, folded those and put them in the chair beside her closet. He opened up her bureau and dug around in the bottom drawer for those sweatpants and the t-shirt he usually left here, but he didn’t see them.</p><p>Oh well, he’d be fine in his boxers.</p><p>Castle moved for her bed and pulled down the covers, laughed to himself when he found his sweatpants - crumpled in a ball under her pillow, along with the t-shirt as well. He shook them out and her scent lifted up from the material.</p><p>Not just her lotion and the oil of her skin, but her scent. The one he smelled when he had his mouth between her legs.</p><p>Fuck. His cock had been primed all day as he’d traveled, and now smelling her on his clothes, in her bed where she’d either been wearing them or keeping them close enough to wipe her fingers on them after she’d given herself an orgasm - it was enough to make him ache.</p><p>He crawled into her bed and pulled the covers up, buried his nose in her pillow and inhaled.</p><p>He’d missed this. And he was so tired.</p><p>-----</p><p>He woke with the scrape of the key in the lock.</p><p>Swiping a hand down the bed, he ascertained he was alone, and then it came back to him in startling clarity - Kate’s bed, Kate’s apartment, home.</p><p>He grinned and rolled over onto his back, listened to the sounds of her coming inside the apartment. She dumped everything on the floor - he heard the loud thump of even her holstered weapon hitting the hardwood - and that wasn’t like her. Long day, apparently.</p><p>Castle put an arm behind his head and rubbed his other hand down his face, wincing when he brushed over the bruises along his jaw. She was coming down the hallway now; he hoped she’d seen his stuff over the couch.</p><p>She had her hands in her hair and shoving it back when she cleared the doorway. Her eyes were red and swollen, tears streaked down her face and crested her collarbones. For one heart-stopping instant, she was arrested in her bedroom, terrified, and then he jumped out of bed and came to her.</p><p>“Kate,” he rasped. He knew better than to surround her with endearments and love; he knew better. Instead he wrapped an arm hard around her neck and dragged her into his chest, crushing her against him.</p><p>A wrenching sob tore from her guts, and his heart cringed like a dog. He wrapped his other arm around her and forced her to stay against him. He swayed on his feet, felt the chill of her clothes being thawed by the heat of his skin. Her hands between them gave a half-hearted shove, but she wasn’t getting rid of him.</p><p>Another broken sob got through and he squeezed her harder, tighter, murmuring nonsense into her temple. And then it all fell apart. She cried against him, the tears wetting his neck as her body shuddering with it; he sank his fingers into her hair and pressed his lips to the top of her head, hanging on.</p><p>He ached for her. But at least she was in one piece; she was alive, whatever had happened tonight.</p><p>His fingers combed through her hair, being gentle, and he dropped a kiss to her temple, another to the side of her face, another wherever he could reach. She was pressed hard into his neck, her fingers were pinching the muscles of his back along his spine where she was holding on so tightly.</p><p>He realized after a moment that she wasn’t in her uniform, and his heart squeezed.</p><p>“What happened?” he husked. She wasn’t in her uniform and so it wasn’t the job; it hadn’t been the job. His heart flipped funny. “Kate, what’s wrong?”</p><p>She growled something unintelligible from his neck and he could feel her resisting now - as she always did when he called attention to these cracks in her armor. But he refused to let her go; he wouldn’t, not when he was here, not when he could actually do something about it. He left her alone too much of the time.</p><p>He shut up and he kept his arms around her and weathered it, whatever the fuck it was; he took it.</p><p>-----</p><p>“I’m tired,” she rasped. “Can’t you just let me...”</p><p>She trailed off with such limp resistance that his heart sank.</p><p>He threaded his fingers together behind her head, ducked to look in her eyes. She had her hands wrapped around his forearms, trying to get him to let go, but he wasn’t. He wouldn’t.</p><p>“So let’s go to bed,” he answered finally. He brushed his thumbs over her still-wet cheeks and she sucked in a breath and closed her eyes. It was too much for her; she couldn’t take it.</p><p>Instead of apologizing and kissing her senseless like he wanted, he let go of her hair and pulled her past him, pushing her towards the bed. She was mechanically stripping off her sweater - a beautiful jade that made her hair bright and her red-rimmed eyes more heart-breaking. He caught the sweater and folded it, put it on top of his own clothes on the chair, and then he came back in time to see her sink onto the mattress.</p><p>He knelt at her feet and pulled off her high-heeled boots, arranged them neatly before the closet door for later. She had already brought her knees up to peel her jeans down her legs, and she let them fall on the floor. He took those as well, folded them and laid them on the chair.</p><p>When he turned to her, she’d crawled into bed, into his side of it, her back to him and her face buried in the pillow. He came in behind her and curved his body to hers, draped his arm over her side and tucked her against him. Her arms were curled against her chest as if for protection, and he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, threading in between her hands to press against her heart.</p><p>Her skin was chilled - it’d been spitting snow he remembered now, though he hadn’t consciously realized it during his walk home - and her hair was damp in places. He slid his other arm under her pillow and made himself a shield around her.</p><p>He thought she was crying still.</p><p>And then he realized. One in the morning, civilian clothes - it had to be her father.</p><p>Fuck. Oh, fuck. “Kate,” he husked, pressing his nose to her shoulder. “Kate, is he okay?”</p><p>She mewled and untangled her hand from his grip, pressed it against her eyes as her shoulders hunched.</p><p>“Oh, God. Kate, is he - has something happened to him? Is he - in a hospital?”</p><p>“No.” She took in a gulping breath. “No, just. More of the same.”</p><p>Just life. Fucking life. Her father drunk at another bar and Kate having to get him home alone. Dragging her down, taking her down with him.</p><p>“Took him home to sleep it off.”</p><p>He closed his eyes, his face pressed against her shoulder blade, and he was so damn grateful to whatever nudge from the Universe had prompted him to skip out on the program today and just come home.</p><p>At least he was here for this. This one night out of hundreds. How many nights did she come home crying? Had she walked the streets alone like this - had she wept on the subway ride, ignoring the strangers on the car just as they ignored her?</p><p>It killed him. It made him furious. It made him hurt with a love he didn’t dare express.</p><p>Except one way; one way she’d have him.</p><p>He kissed her cold skin at her shoulder and trailed his lips to her neck. He kept his hips carefully held away from her, skimmed his hand under her camisole and along her stomach. She was still in her bra and underwear, and he didn’t tease, didn’t suggest. He merely touched.</p><p>He spread his fingers to the round clench of her ab muscles, dusted the tops of her drawn-up thighs. He came back up to sweep under the wire of her bra, into the creased valley where her breasts lay. Her body was no longer rigid with shamed grief, but she didn’t move either, didn’t turn to take him.</p><p>He didn’t want her to; he just wanted to love her.</p><p>He kissed the rise of her shoulder and the wing of her scapula; he dragged his lips to her spine and the hair that tickled his mouth. He inhaled the scent of her from outside - the mingling of flavors that suggested crisp air and concrete and that tantalizing hint of honey.</p><p>She shifted like she might be trying to return the favor, but he clamped his hand on her hip and brushed his fingers under the waistband of her panties. That got her quiet, like it always did, made her still and wait for his next move. He squeezed her hip and kissed the soft place at the nape of her neck, diverted her attention back to the play of his mouth over her.</p><p>He didn’t use his tongue, didn’t nip at her skin; he only kissed her, lips and breath, a string of them along her neck and connecting her spine until the camisole was in his way. But he left it on, breathed out to warm the fabric, pressing his lips to her through the shirt, kissed her until her shoulders stopped carrying her tension and she relaxed.</p><p>He crawled back up her body and lay down behind her, drawing his hand along her side and gripping her arm, and when he looked at her face, her eyes were closed and the tears had stopped.</p><p>He carefully slid his arm under her pillow once more, holding his breath, but she only sighed and sank into the mattress. He draped his other arm around her waist and fit himself against her, leaning into her back so that she was nearly underneath him.</p><p>Her whole body released, tension melting away, and he felt the moment she fell into sleep.</p><p>He closed his eyes, but he knew he wouldn’t follow.</p><p>-----</p><p>Apparently, he’d fallen asleep.</p><p>He woke to the feeling of her fingers stroking his jaw, the faint nudge of bruises. He kept his eyes closed because he could sense her near, her body turned into his and her breath skirting his lips. He feigned sleep to see what would happen, to gauge her mood, and he felt her slowly worm her way against him.</p><p>There was no camisole now, no bra. Her breasts brushed his chest and her body was warm, her arm sliding in under his and around his waist to press herself against him.</p><p>“I know you’re awake.”</p><p>He huffed the breath that was caught in his chest and wrapped himself around her, pressing his erection into her thighs. She hooked a leg at his waist and suddenly he was right there.</p><p>No panties. All that was in the way were his own boxers, but she was raking her nails over the material and along the ridge of him.</p><p>“Ah, shit,” he gasped.</p><p>She hummed and kissed his neck, her mouth open and her tongue trailing a wicked design. His groin was on fire, already aching, when she reached through the slit in his boxer briefs and closed her hand around his flesh.</p><p>“F-fuck,” he stuttered.</p><p>“I love that,” she murmured at his throat. “You gulp as you curse for me.”</p><p>“Ah, shit, shit, shit.”</p><p>She laughed and pushed him onto his back, straddled his hips, and he got the first good look at her in the morning light. The tears were gone, erased completely, and her eyes were rich with longing. She leaned in over him and her hair brushed her shoulders and curtained her face, made her smile look both sexy and young at the same time.</p><p>He let her rub herself against him, but he reached up and hooked her shoulders, dragged her down for a kiss. Her mouth against his was softer than he’d expected, like a thank you she’d never speak aloud, and he took it, left it gentle and touching and sweet.</p><p>But she had planted her hands on his chest and was dragging her wet sex against the material of his boxers, a pornographic move that had him growing harder and less willing to go with sweet.</p><p>Totally her plan, and he knew it, but he didn’t care. She wanted to fuck him, fine. He could do that too, gladly. She was gonna get exactly what she wanted out of him.</p><p>He gripped the back of her neck and pulled her off of his mouth. “Where are your cuffs?” he growled.</p><p>“Mine or the fun ones?” She raised an eyebrow and squirmed her sex on top of him, making him momentarily forget his train of thought. Fuck, she was wet. Dripping wet.</p><p>“Fun - fun ones. Yours would leave marks on me,” he snapped. This time it would, since he’d skipped treatment. He opened his eyes to see her thinking, and fuck no, he couldn’t have marks on him - he had to report to his father in a couple days and he was already in deep shit for ditching. “Kate.”</p><p>“On you?” she said. “You want to be cuffed?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he rasped. She needed it more than he did; after last night, shit.</p><p>“But last time we did that, you...” She blinked and licked her bottom lip, turned her head as if searching for something.</p><p>“It was good last time, baby. Just let me see you. Don’t blindfold me.”</p><p>“Sure?” she murmured, glancing back at him. She was already leaning over him and opening her bedside table, but she kept her eyes on his as if to make certain he wasn’t just saying that.</p><p>“I want this. Plus it’s hot to have you take off my boxers while my hands are cuffed. Like an intimate strip search, Officer.”</p><p>She smiled at him, her amusement well in hand and not allowed out as laughter, but he was glad for that too. It meant she was bouncing back from last night, that it was far from her mind this morning.</p><p>She shuffled through all the fun sex toys they’d collected, and she slowly pulled out the rubber cuffs, let them dangle over his head. He grinned up at her and slapped his palms against her thighs and squeezed.</p><p>“How much time do we have?” he asked. “Cause you’re good at drawing it out and I don’t want you to be late and leave me cuffed to your headboard.”</p><p>She laughed then; he’d gotten to her. She reached back for his hands still at her thighs and she cuffed one of his wrists.</p><p>“Not cuffing you to my headboard.”</p><p>“Oh?”</p><p>She snapped the other bracelet to her own wrist and laced her fingers with his. “I’m handcuffing you to me.” And then she lowered her body down over his and dragged his hand up above his head. Her mouth touched his lips and hovered there, barely a kiss. “Because you were good to me last night and I can be good - so very good - to you this morning.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.</p><p>She was so wet and hot around him. He arched up into her, his free hand caressing her ribs and circling her breast, and she moaned every time he skimmed her nipple. Their cuffed hands tightened and squeezed and kissed, her forearm pressed into his over his head. Her body was so close that she worked an odd angle to ride him, but it was slow and deep and gutting him out.</p><p>Her breasts rubbed against his chest and he thumbed her nipple again, made her cry out with it. He felt her sex contract around him and her rhythm speed up, and he grit his teeth to hang on, to just damn well hang on through this.</p><p>She came apart on a muffled cry, her head buried in his chest as she worked herself off. When she was sweaty and still and breathing hard over him, he brought her wrist to his lips and kissed the flutter of her pulse just under the cuff.</p><p>And then he rolled her to her back and laid over her, waiting until she opened her eyes to look at him.</p><p>He didn’t say it, and he didn’t say it, and he knew she could read it in his gaze anyway. Love.</p><p>He stroked their joined hands down her own body, tangling with her fingers as he rubbed her nipple. But he kept going down her torso until together they were teasing her groin. She shifted restlessly under him. He kissed her suddenly, shoving his tongue into her throat because he wanted her so badly, and then he hooked his fingers in hers and touched her arousal.</p><p>She moaned into his mouth.</p><p>His cock had slipped out of her when he’d rolled them, and it pulsed at her thighs, at that hot and humid junction of her sex. She was touching herself as he touched her; he felt her hands finding the fastest jolts of pleasure, the surest fix, and he used his own touch to make her burn.</p><p>She was trembling and crying out under him, her words still caught in his mouth while he stroked his tongue inside her kiss, reminding her of where he wanted to be.</p><p>She had stopped giving him orders, issuing him directions, about ten minutes ago, and there was something heady and powerful and right about knowing enough about her to do it just as she hadn’t known she’d needed.</p><p>Kate broke away from his kiss and dragged her teeth along his jaw to his ear. Her breath was hot and fast and her kiss had a bite to it that meant she was worked up again, that her first orgasm hadn’t been near enough, that she wanted it now. All without words.</p><p>He lifted his hips and wrapped their cuffed hands around his cock; she groaned and squeezed him hard. She had lost all art to it, and he dropped his forehead to hers in a resulting breathlessness.</p><p>“This is the best feeling,” she said at his mouth, her hand working him. “This moment right before you go in. The expectation.”</p><p>He guided his cock to her entrance, waiting at her sex, holding back, and she writhed under him, trying to get him inside.</p><p>“I love making you desperate for me,” he growled.</p><p>She untangled her hand from his and moved back to cup his balls, the handcuff chain tugging, her fingers massaging him so that the need coiled tighter in his guts.</p><p>He pushed inside her once more, her body barely resisting him, the deep and wet slide of his cock into the place where it belonged. She groaned and her arms tried to go around him; the cuffs jerked her back and she laughed, a little breathless.</p><p>He found her hand and pressed it above her head; it made him slide deeper somehow, made him sink into her body until his balls ached with it. She took a short breath that expanded her breasts into his chest, and he lowered his head to nip at her lips.</p><p>“I was wrong,” she whispered.</p><p>“Wrong?”</p><p>“This is the best feeling,” she said.</p><p>“This is the best feeling,” he agreed. “So hard inside you, your body around me.”</p><p>“Taking you deep,” she murmured. The fingers of her free hand trailed up and down his spine, her mouth nudging soft kisses against his jaw, his cheek. “Everything is perfect like this. Even though I can’t fix anything, I’m never enough, this always is.”</p><p>He didn’t answer; he didn’t know how to answer without making her realize everything she’d said to him. He kissed her instead, slow and purposeful, sliding his tongue along hers in tandem. She spread her thighs under him then, widened her hips, and he sank impossibly deeper.</p><p>She groaned. He kept his pace slow, hard drags out, that silky glide inside, her body snug around him. She gasped and lifted her hips for him; he squeezed her hand cuffed to his and painted his her lips with a soft kiss.</p><p>But he found that he couldn’t not say something; he couldn’t keep hoping that his silence spoke for him. Not after last night, the way she’d looked, how devastated. She needed more; she deserved more.</p><p>“You fix me,” he breathed at her mouth. “You’re perfect for me. More than enough. I was nothing before you.”</p><p>She sucked in a breath, but he ignored that and kept rocking his hips. She made that animal noise he loved, the one that said she was close, and her teeth caught his jaw. He began thrusting inside her, making her forget he’d ever said it, making her remember only the weight and force of his erection, the strength of his need.</p><p>“Come on, Kate. Won’t come without you.” He felt his body shaking, desperate for that clutching power she could give, desperate for her. He took a ragged kiss from her mouth, pressed his free hand between them.</p><p>She mewled his name and shattered, her fingers tightening in his. Her body arched so fiercely that their skins were pressed together, rigid and taut.</p><p>He growled and worked his cock in a brutal rhythm, nostrils flared, fully aware of how much he was driving her. That gorgeous narrow body, the strength of her legs wrapped around him, the hot thick wetness of her sex. In moments, she climaxed again with a shout. Richard orgasmed at the clutch of her cunt around him, burst apart deep inside her body.</p><p>Collapsed.</p><p>-----</p><p>Their fingers laced together, arms slid under her pillow, and he curled up at her back, laying his mouth at her shoulder.</p><p>"Mm," she murmured. "Good."</p><p>"Missed you," he confessed, touching his tongue to her skin. She shivered, rippling with his kiss, and he drew his thigh up between her knees and wrapped himself more fully around her. "Missed you a lot, Kate."</p><p>She sighed and her fingers flexed within his hand. They were still cuffed together and neither of them had moved to unclasp the rubber purple bands. "Especially this," she murmured, her free hand stroking along his forearm where he embraced her. “This is incomparable."</p><p>It was the closest he'd ever gotten to the heart of things from her, and he would take it. He smiled against her skin and closed his eyes. She was still stroking his forearm, up and down in that ghostly way she sometimes had, the same way she teased his cock, and he turned his palm to meet hers, catching her fingers.</p><p>Since she was uncomfortable with him making declarations - and he knew it - he pressed his hips into hers and let her feel him at the small of her back. Ready to go again if she wanted to forget.</p><p>She made a noise, small and soft, something raw in it - pain or exposure - and her back shifted away from him. He went still and didn't move and she huffed a breath and tried to turn in his arms.</p><p>"What's going on?" he said quickly, clamping his arm down at her ribs and holding her there. Half turned, she stiffened and he saw the momentary pain flicker across her face. "What happened, Kate? What'd you do?"</p><p>"It's fine. I'm fine," she said hurriedly. "It doesn't hurt that much."</p><p>Like fucking hell. He released her hand and pressed his palm to her hip, rotated her body away from his, pushing her facedown to the mattress.</p><p>He laughed at first. "A tattoo?"</p><p>"Shut up," she muttered into the pillow.</p><p>He flicked his wrist to set them free from the cuffs, and he chucked them over the side of the bed before laying over her, his chest pressed to her ass. He leaned in and softly kissed the angry red skin at her lower back - just above her left cheek and flaring out along her hip.</p><p>It was a stylized Russian bear, the side profile, narrow head with the skull showing and large body, and instead of bones, he could read Russian words artfully detailed through the bear's outline. He read it slowly, tracing his fingers over the slope of her ass, careful not to touch the still-fresh ink.</p><p>His heart was breaking. It reminded him of the criminal tattoos he'd seen in Siberia and Ukraine, usually imprisoned dissidents.</p><p>"You can read Russian," she sighed. "Can't you?"</p><p>"Yeah, love," he murmured, lowering a kiss to her spine beside the bear's bleak skull head. The whole thing was bleak. "I know what it says."</p><p>She clenched her fists in the sheets.</p><p>"How long did it take?"</p><p>"I had to go four times," she said, turning her cheek to the pillow. He crawled up beside her and laid on his back, his hand at her hamstring, fingers sliding between her thighs. His arm was warm where it laid along her side.</p><p>"Four times. How long?"</p><p>"Two hours each."</p><p>"Over a week? A month?"</p><p>"The last two weeks."</p><p>"It's beautiful, Kate."</p><p>"It's for my mom."</p><p>"I know, love."</p><p>"It's not supposed to be beautiful."</p><p>"That's why it is," he sighed. He squeezed her thigh and turned his head to look at her, his vulnerable Kate, marking her body to mark time, inking her side to remember.</p><p>He wanted to say he loved her, that it would be okay, that she would survive this, they would make it together, but he couldn't say any of those things. Her tattoo said enough.</p><p>The exhausting winter road</p><p>Leads the troika, full of strength</p><p>"It's a poem by Pushkin," she said finally. She pushed her fingers into the space where his neck met his shoulder; she wasn't looking at him, only at how she smoothed the hair curling at his ear. "It's just - it's how I want to be."</p><p>Full of strength, pushing ahead, forging through the long winter.</p><p>He rolled then and came in close at her side, pressed his kiss to her jaw, nuzzled down against her pillow. "It's how I see you," he murmured. "Charging forward. Dauntless. You don't let fear stand in your way; you never back down. You'll get there, Kate. I promise, love. You'll get there."</p><p>He cupped the back of her head and kissed her softly; she seemed to shiver and release in his embrace, her mouth settling into his, no longer tense.</p><p>He kissed her once more before letting her go. "But we should put something on this, love. Keep it wet."</p><p>"You're doing a fine job keeping me wet," she murmured, an eyebrow lifting.</p><p>He smiled back, giving her that at least, a chance to forget, and he let himself be convinced to stay.</p><p>When she got up and showered for work, then he'd do something about the burn of her skin and the angry touch of ink.</p><p>-----</p><p>He took her once more standing at her bathroom sink, made her watch them in the mirror, watch herself as he held her hips and plowed into her. She didn’t even need her own touch to send her over. They showered together, quickly because she didn't have much time, and she seemed able to let him linger in the small things, when he rubbed soap along her shoulder or when he tilted her head back and rinsed her hair out.</p><p>He got out first, kissing her mouth and drinking the water from her lips. She swatted his ass and finished shaving while he moved to the sink to brush his teeth. He enjoyed the steam in the bathroom and the sounds of her showering, but he couldn’t linger. Back in her bedroom, pulled on boxers and the jeans she kept here for him, hustling so he wouldn’t miss her. When she stepped out of the clawfoot tub, steam enveloping the bathroom, he had the vaseline already open and waiting for her.</p><p>She rolled her eyes at him, but he dipped his fingers in the gel and scooped some out. "Turn," he directed her.</p><p>Kate gave him her back and side, the flare of her ass pink from the shower. He dabbed vaseline lightly at first, being careful of the raw places where the ink sloughed. It was starkly black; the Russian letters seemed to vibrate with energy within the bear's outline. He smoothed vaseline over the beautiful homage to her mother - to the struggle - while she dripped water to the bathroom floor.</p><p>"Cold?" he murmured, finishing up.</p><p>"Not too bad."</p><p>He smeared the last of it from his thumb onto her hip and kissed the hard edge of her shoulder. "The guys in the Army wrap it in plastic wrap and duct tape. Keep the vaseline from rubbing off."</p><p>"Oh?"</p><p>"It works. And a wet heal will make the black ink stay vivid like that. It'll still slough, but not as much."</p><p>"They didn't tell me that," she frowned.</p><p>He regarded her Russian bear for a moment more, about the size of his fist. "You went back to Brighton Beach, didn't you?"</p><p>"Yes."</p><p>Shit, he hoped she hadn't contracted hepatitis at one of those nasty places. Beckett. She just kept doing this kind of thing. "You have plastic wrap?"</p><p>"In the kitchen drawer."</p><p>"Be right back."</p><p>Castle left her to get ready while he found supplies, plastic wrap and duct tape, and he headed back down the hall, looking for her. She was in the bedroom, pulling out street clothes to wear to the station, already in her panties and bra, though she'd had to fold down even the low-cut bikinis to avoid the vaseline.</p><p>"Here," he said shortly. "I got it. Kate."</p><p>She stopped digging through her closet and wordlessly came back to him, lifting her elbows out from her sides to let him get close. He tore off a piece of plastic wrap with an awkward juggle, frowning as the plastic twisted and got stuck and she laughed at him.</p><p>"You got it?" she murmured.</p><p>"Shut up," he huffed, knelt beside her.</p><p>"Uh-huh." She scratched her fingers over his scalp; her hand stayed at the top of his head. “Looks twisted up, baby.”</p><p>"I got it, I do. Here." He tried again, throwing the wadded up plastic on the floor in favor of a fresh sheet. The plastic missed the sharp teeth and cut haphazardly - and into his own hand. "Damn it."</p><p>"Give it to me," she chuckled. "You tear the duct tape."</p><p>He handed it over and she judged the size, ripped a thin film of plastic wrap from the roll, just like that. Castle sighed and tore off the duct tape, took the plastic from her and placed it over her side. He taped it up at the edges, poked his finger against the tape to squish the vaseline - couldn't help himself.</p><p>She huffed and looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes clear and no trace of last night's tears.</p><p>"Hey," he said then, getting to his feet. "Where's the dog?"</p><p>Kate laughed out loud, throwing a hand over her mouth as she turned around, dropping it only to slide her arms around his waist and bump his pelvis with her own. "Took you long enough."</p><p>"Did it die?"</p><p>"No," she laughed, sounding horrified. "Cujo is alive and well. He's baby-sitting my dad."</p><p>"Oh. Oh, really?"</p><p>"It seems to - help. He has something that depends on him to get up. And Cujo's - you know."</p><p>"Crazy?" he muttered.</p><p>"Easy," she smiled, shaking her head at him. "I pick him up after my shift."</p><p>"I can do it," he said easily. But it stung a little. That she didn't ask him to go, that it was all still on her to do everything, get things accomplished. She didn't rely on him, even when he was here. "I'll pick him up; he and I can go for a run in the park."</p><p>Kate leaned away from him, gauging his face. "Okay," she said hesitantly. "But if you've got stuff you need to get done..."</p><p>"No, love."</p><p>Her eyes were studying him, tracking over his cheek and jaw, down his torso. "What happened to you? I've never seen you so - roughed up. Bruised." She wrapped her fingers around his bicep and stroked the edges of the laceration. "This needed stitches, Rick."</p><p>"It's okay. Closed up on its own. I just - wanted to get back here," he said quietly. "Get back to you."</p><p>She went still, her eyes dark and fathomless. They didn't say things like that, but he had needed to say it. He wasn't sure how she was taking it, what was going on in her head, her heart. But she hadn't moved away from his embrace.</p><p>"Get back to me," she murmured.</p><p>"Yeah. You know," he said. She had to know. He couldn't believe that she didn't, somewhere, know exactly what this meant.</p><p>"My birthday," she whispered.</p><p>Her... birthday? Oh, fuck. Oh, shit, her birthday.</p><p>Castle tightened his arms around her and brought her against his chest, frightened by how small and wary her voice sounded, by how easily he'd never even thought of it. Never. Hadn't even occurred to him that her birthday was - shit, it was in five days.</p><p>Thank the universe he'd come back. For last night, for when she'd needed arms to hold her up, hold her together, and for this as well - her birthday.</p><p>Who else would celebrate with her? He knew her father was worthless when it came to holidays; more than worthless, downright destructive.</p><p>Castle tucked her into his body and softly kissed her cheek, nuzzling down to her ear. "Your birthday," he murmured, his heart tripping. At least he was a spy, at least he knew how to play it. "Any way you want it, love. Nothing at all or everything. You just say the word."</p><p>She nodded tightly against him.</p><p>Oh, God, if he hadn't - if it hadn't come up. If he'd missed it.</p><p>He was failing her so often. He was failing her.</p><p>She tried to shrug him off. "How'd it go out there? Why'd you get - so messed up?"</p><p>"It kinda fell apart," he admitted, grateful to change the subject. "The whole thing. I'm - I have to debrief in a couple days - maybe even tomorrow - but after that... I'm at loose ends."</p><p>"Loose ends."</p><p>"I'm not yet sure where I'll go," he said, shrugging but his brow furrowed. He realized he was squeezing her too hard and tried to let her go, but she cupped his elbows and kept his arms around her.</p><p>"Not back to Ireland?"</p><p>"No. Not this time. Maybe not ever again."</p><p>"It was that bad."</p><p>"That bad," he sighed. "We rounded up some mid-level thugs, but not the big fish. But I can't - let's not talk about that right now. You get dressed for work before you're late. I'll pick up the dog, talk to your dad a little-"</p><p>"Don't-"</p><p>"I won't," he promised. "I won't. Just say hi."</p><p>She nodded.</p><p>He kissed her again, cupping her cheek to feel the still-warm blush of her skin.</p><p>Her birthday. He was going to have to do something about that.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Castle left when Kate did; he didn’t want to miss Jim before he left for work, though Kate said his day usually started at nine and lasted until seven in the evening. They rode the subway together and he kissed her at his stop, winked as the door closed between them. She didn’t bat an eyelash, already in cop mode.</p><p>He had spy; she had cop.</p><p>It worked for them.</p><p>She’d given him the key, just in case, but he pushed the buzzer and waited for Jim to come to the door. The buzzer sounded back and the door clicked open, and Castle glanced up to the video surveillance, still a little uncomfortable about being on camera.</p><p>Kate had reassured him before that the video footage wasn’t archived, so he tried not to worry about it. He stepped into the building’s elevator and pressed the button for Jim’s floor, tapping his finger against his thigh, irritated for some reason he couldn’t understand.</p><p>He pulled out his phone while the elevator made its way up, texted her because he couldn’t stop. Hey, babe. Your dad buzzed me up. Want to meet for lunch?</p><p>He pocketed his phone and stepped off the elevator, headed down the hall to Jim’s apartment. He knocked and her father answered immediately, but he did a doubletake when he saw it was Castle.</p><p>“Richard. Haven’t seen you in a while, son. How are you?”</p><p>“Good, sir.”</p><p>Jim let him inside and the dog came bounding from the back bedroom, practically wriggling with joy.</p><p>And then came to a halt when he saw Castle.</p><p>“Aw, Cujo, come on,” he muttered. “I know I’m not Kate, but seriously.”</p><p>The dog came closer, tail wagging hesitantly, and Jim chuckled. “Not sure he knows who you are, Rick. Been so long.”</p><p>Had it?</p><p>Castle frowned but he dropped to his haunches and held up both palms, waited for Cujo to come to him. Finally, the wolf slinked over, nudged his head into Castle’s knee and allowed Castle to pet him.</p><p>“Has it been too long?” he murmured to the dog. Rubbing the top of his head and down his back, Castle realized it was Kate’s look on the subway this morning that was bothering him.</p><p>Like she didn’t expect him to return.</p><p>He turned his head and glanced over his shoulder at Jim. “Six weeks,” he told the man. “That’s - it’s been longer between times.”</p><p>“Maybe so,” Jim said, shrugging. “No judgment here, son.”</p><p>Of course not. Castle stood and tugged at Cujo’s collar. “Come on, wolf. Wanna go for a run?”</p><p>“Here’s his leash. Tell Kate...” Jim trailed off and Castle collected the leash, continuing to ignore the whole reason why the dog had been at Jim’s place to begin with.</p><p>Castle clipped the leash onto Cujo’s collar, wrapped the end around his hand and waited. But when Jim still said nothing, Castle couldn’t help it. “You - uh - gonna be around for her birthday?” he asked, glancing over at the man.</p><p>Jim’s face blanched, but he nodded slowly. “I... plan on being here.”</p><p>What did that mean? “Okay.”</p><p>“Yeah. She’s - working, you know.”</p><p>“Working? Oh, her birthday’s on Wednesday, right? So. I assume she’s working.” Why wouldn’t she be working?</p><p>Jim nodded again, as if in a daze.</p><p>“I’m here for that,” Castle added.</p><p>Her father glanced at him in surprise. “You’re here? But that’s - next week.”</p><p>“Five days.” He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I’m usually only here for the weekend, but I have - some time coming to me.”</p><p>“Oh,” Jim said. He looked relieved, and Castle didn’t understand why. He always felt like he was flying blind when it came to Jim and Kate. They didn’t say everything they meant and often most of their relationship was in all those things they hadn’t said.</p><p>“Well,” Castle said, frustrated by them both. “I’m here. So. I guess Kate will call you with details. I don’t know her plans, but I plan on doing something for her.”</p><p>Jim’s face cleared and he reached out and patted Castle on the back. “Thank you, son. That’s - good. That’s good. You know her favorite is strawberry shortcake. When she was a girl...”</p><p>Jim stopped suddenly in the foyer where he had been seeing Castle out; his hands shook as he pushed them into his pants pockets. He was staring at the door.</p><p>“Strawberry shortcake,” Castle repeated, trying to break the sudden spell. Sometimes Jim got like this, falling into silence as if caught up in memory. “Got it. Thanks for the tip.”</p><p>Whipped cream came on strawberry shortcake, right? Yeah, that could definitely be fun.</p><p>Castle nodded to Jim and headed out the door with the dog at his side, but part of him was wondering if it was really that strange - staying in New York for a week. And what if maybe she didn’t want him around that long?</p><p>But he wasn’t going to ask. If he asked, she might say no.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle forced the dog to explore the city with him, ranging from Harlem to Downtown, riding the lines back and forth, criss-crossing his way through the boroughs. No one said anything about the dog on the subway and Castle had learned long ago he could do anything he wanted if he had enough confidence, if he looked like he belonged. He asked questions of complete strangers and flirted with secretaries, he staked out neighborhoods and haunted storefronts.</p><p>He listened, he took notes. He found the perfect confluence of confection and romance for her birthday: the Plaza Hotel.</p><p>Inside the food hall of the Plaza was a sophisticated boutique bakery called Lady M that was renowned for their cake crepes and - most importantly - their strawberry shortcake. And it was the Plaza. Built in romance, right?</p><p>He booked a room under the name Rodgers and set everything up - he talked to the bakery owner and the concierge and he explained what he was doing. The man who managed the bakery, Ken was his name, seemed not only to fall in love with Castle’s dog, but he also added flourishes to the plan that Castle hadn’t even considered.</p><p>Her birthday was going to be extraordinary.</p><p>He left feeling pretty damn good about himself, about what he could get accomplished if he was earnest and persuasive and had some money as well - and he hadn’t even needed CIA contacts for it. No help from Eastman. Not a thing from his father.</p><p>It was a heady feeling. Tasted like strawberries and freedom.</p><p>And yeah, it was a little ridiculous. He knew that too. She was going to raise both eyebrows at him before the night had even started, but that was fine too.</p><p>Dessert and the best hotel in New York. She deserved it. She more than deserved it. He was excited now, and the dog was feeling his energy and bounding forward, and it was all going to be perfect.</p><p>It was going to be perfect.</p><p>-----</p><p>She texted him back around 12:30 just after he’d finally gotten a shower. You’ve probably given up waiting on me. I’ll just grab something fast.</p><p>He hurried to message her, rubbing the towel once over his body. No, just got out of the shower. Nice long run with Cujo, wore him out. Want me to bring you something?</p><p>He waited for her response, but he was already throwing on clean clothes, haphazardly digging through the pile of stuff in her bottom drawer. There was more now than there had ever been, things he hadn’t bought for himself, and he dragged out a t-shirt that made his heart flip funny.</p><p>The Superman logo. All it was. Superman. He’d never told her before, had he? He’d read the comics as a kid, sneaked off base and seen the movie, hidden it from his father. His first rebellion, minor though it had been. His only rebellion. Superman comics. He’d dabbled in Batman and Elektra, Green Lantern and Avengers, but Superman had caught him fiercely and hadn’t let go.</p><p>And he was pretty sure she had a Batman shirt somewhere in here, buried under the lingerie and the pajama bottoms and the silk things, a similar love for superheroes.</p><p>It was such a normal thing, an ordinary thing, but he pulled the shirt on over his head and smoothed his hand down the soft cotton at his chest, staring at the logo.</p><p>His phone buzzed and he scooped it up, saw her hasty reply. Fine. Something fast.</p><p>He could be fast. Faster than a speeding bullet.</p><p>-----</p><p>He brought enough fries to feed an army and she gave him deliciously adoring looks from the corner of her eyes when she thought he wasn’t looking. The guys on shift with her - only three others had camped out in the break room, lured by the scent of grease - were feasting.</p><p>And she looked proud of him. Or at least not ashamed for him to be there.</p><p>“First time you’ve made it inside,” she murmured, sitting beside him at the narrow table. She had an easy rapport with the guys on her shift, but he noticed she was still this inviolate thing, someone who stood apart.</p><p>“I know. It’s a huge accomplishment,” he grinned. “And I’m not even worried about all the cameras.”</p><p>“Yeah, you are,” she tossed back.</p><p>“Yeah, I am,” he sighed, shoulders slumping in defeat. She laughed softly and bit into her grilled turkey, something warm for the chillier weather, some meat and cheese to keep her going until she could leave.</p><p>“So, Rick, what is it you do?” one of the guys asked, inquiring politely.</p><p>Beside him, Kate didn’t even tense; she just turned her head and gave him a curious look.</p><p>“I’m in the Army,” he answered easily. “Moving from overseas to admin work.”</p><p>“Desk job,” another snorted. “Won’t that be fun.”</p><p>“Nah, not a desk job,” Castle grinned. “That’d kill me faster than an IED. But moving up the chain of command a little.” Maybe. He hoped. Good enough for his cover.</p><p>Kate hummed something to herself and kept eating her lunch; Castle let the conversation flow naturally to other things, mostly football and explosive devices, interestingly, and then it was done. Over.</p><p>The guys departed, leaving the crunchier fries in the bag, and Castle fished out a couple, ate them himself while Kate was finishing her sandwich.</p><p>“Is that the story?” she murmured.</p><p>He glanced over at her. “For them.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Because men in police uniform respect fellow combatants. Even if one of them has a crush on you - which, Beckett, by the way, Lopez does - they’d still respect me for the work, the patriotism, the life on the line stuff. Respecting me means respecting your choice, which leads to trust and willingness to follow your orders. Simple psychology. I can at least not bring down shit on your head when I show up.”</p><p>She regarded him thoughtfully. “You were in the Army.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“So it is, essentially, true.”</p><p>“Isn’t everything, essentially, true?” He grinned at her and snagged her elbow, smoothing his fingers over the soft skin. “That’s pretty much how I live my life, sweetheart. Essentially.”</p><p>She wasn’t smiling back, but she didn’t seem angry. Only thoughtful. “Why’d you ever tell me the truth? Army would have worked... essentially.”</p><p>He shrugged and sat up straighter in the chair, leaned over to put his elbows back on the table. “I don’t - because you deserved... better than that. Better than just the essentials.”</p><p>He hunched over the table, staring down at his own sandwich, but suddenly he felt her hand sliding around his arm and then her cheek came to his shoulder, laying there a moment. She turned a kiss into him, her mouth at the line of his sleeve so that he felt her bottom lip on his skin.</p><p>“We don’t always get what we deserve,” she murmured. “And thank God for that.”</p><p>He lifted his hand and cupped the side of her face but she was already pulling away - too much for the precinct. He let her go and she stood up, gathering her trash to dump it in the garbage can. She was a cop concerned with mercy for those who didn’t deserve it, and a woman who hadn’t, in her own life, gotten nearly what she should have.</p><p>“I have to fly to DC tonight,” he told her, rubbing his thumb over the water bottle. “For debrief.”</p><p>She went still, her back to him. “Right. You said you would.”</p><p>“It’s a late flight, an Army cargo plane. Red-eye, basically. So.”</p><p>She said nothing to that but came back to the table, brushing crumbs off into her hand. He gathered up his own trash, even though he wasn’t really done, and he stood as well, gathering the courage to ask.</p><p>“Are you - uh - gonna be home at six? Or is it a later shift?”</p><p>“I don’t know, Castle. Things happen.”</p><p>“Right,” he said. Okay. He knew that. And he’d be back after his father completely reamed him - yeah. Could take a while, but he’d be back at least by Sunday. “You work Saturday too, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p> </p><p>“But your Sunday is free?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “Someone wanted to change shifts with me. Things happen.”</p><p>Right. He knew that too - don’t pin her down. Don’t ask her for more than she wanted to give. He had to quit while he was ahead.</p><p>“Well, I’ll - I was thinking dinner tonight, because the flight is so late, right, and... but just text me. Or I’ll text you. Or...”</p><p>“Castle,” she said. “What is it you want from me?”</p><p>His head jerked up. She was standing in the middle of the break room and he realized he’d been staring down at the table, clutching his fingers against the trash. He grunted and tossed it towards the garbage can, frowning at himself.</p><p>When had asking her a damn question intimidated him?</p><p>“I want to make you dinner, Kate. If you have time. If not, I’ll stick it in your fridge and you reheat it when you want. Okay, love? Don’t worry about the shift.”</p><p>She studied him a moment. “All right. I’ll - see how it goes.”</p><p>He stepped forward and forced himself to brazenly plant his hands on her hips, push into her space for a kiss. Claiming her, reminding her, demanding. She made a fist at his sternum, her fingers clutching the emblem on his shirt, and then she let go.</p><p>She smoothed the wrinkles from his t-shirt and lifted her eyes, gave him a smoldering look.</p><p>“Thanks for thinking of my reputation,” she said. “When you came. For thinking - about how it would look to those guys. I... thank you.”</p><p>He grinned, too wide, he knew, giving away too much, but he couldn’t help feeling good. “Anything for you,” he murmured.</p><p>She only rolled her eyes.</p><p>Balance restored.</p><p>-----</p><p>He refused to indulge the urge to run a background on Lopez - Beckett had barely blinked when he'd mentioned the officer’s crush - and instead he did his usual tour of the city when he arrived after a mission. He moved between the public libraries, internet cafes, Apple stores, and coffee shops, borrowing laptops, terminals, and computers until he'd done a thorough check of his usual listservs, bulletin boards, and dark web alerts. He knew that computer traffic in New York City would look erroneous, starburst clusters of information retrieval, but he couldn't help that. It was more important to know the playing field intimately, every man out there, every possible terror suspect, and—more importantly—what his father was doing.</p><p>And, as he’d suspected, Black had been checking up on him.</p><p>Richard sent a message saying he was enroute to DC, listed his approximate arrival time as 0800 Sunday morning (he would actually arrive around 5 a.m.), and then he gave a partial summary to Eastman as his official statement of record. The thing in Dublin had failed, and Richard would be called on the carpet for it, but he had a couple of key defense points already lined up in his head.</p><p>He cultivated his personal legend, checked the bank accounts, and carefully arranged money transfers until he had a money order at a local grocery store waiting for him under the name Rogers. He was fairly certain his father did not know that Castle remembered his mother's last name, but he still needed to be careful about using it too often. He wouldn't put it past the man to do random searches just in case something popped. Rogers was so common though, and Richard was encouraged by the lack of real progress his father had made on queries about his movements.</p><p>Huh. Maybe Richard was wrong about it being his mother’s name. His name. He hadn’t felt any kinship with it, but maybe because it wasn’t his.</p><p>Damn.</p><p>Well, if so, better for it. His father knew every permutation of Castle’s various cover IDs and legends, but not this one. Random. Unknown. No trace behind, right?</p><p>Once he had the secrets squared away, he checked in with the CIA. He was no longer on active status, pending evaluation and debrief, but he was on the duty roster; that was telling. His father assumed he’d be back, quick turnaround. While checking the database, Richard had to take a short break, let the traffic cluster clear.</p><p>Lifting his head, coming out of the fog of digital data, he watched a dog-walker cross the street against the light, jay-walking with a knee-high terrier. Brisk steps achieved the sidewalk, and there the pair passed a man in dress pants and leather jacket who quickly turned away.</p><p>Castle blinked.</p><p>No.</p><p>Couldn’t be. He was logged onto the CIA server and it was causing him to second-guess himself. That was all. He didn’t know that man, and he knew every man in his father’s secret employ. All those under-the-table deals John Black got away with, calling it national security, Castle knew.</p><p>And Richard knew how the CIA ran their reports, and he knew how to circumvent the automatic checks. He wouldn't fool an actual person who went back later and manually went over the logs, but he could avoid the easy stuff. He was safe.</p><p>Eastman had been the one to show him the basic search queries he could run, queries which didn’t trouble the system. Castle knew he could ask a tech to dit, but he hesitated when it came to this—her mother's case. She was so protective of it that Castle didn't want to give it out like that, didn't want even a favor done for him by the CIA. There'd been a couple of guys in the CIA's tech department whom Castle had gotten closer to, Deleware and Malone, but he just wasn't comfortable asking.</p><p>Deleware... honestly, the man irritated him. Castle couldn't say why. He was pleasant enough, he did whatever Castle asked of him, and he seemed more than capable at the query searches. But there was something about Deleware that was just—too much of a pussy. The man never stood up for himself; he simpered to Castle and offered him things and Castle just couldn't respect him.</p><p>And why the hell did the turned-away man on the sidewalk have him thinking about Deleware?</p><p>No.</p><p>Deleware was a desk jockey; he was nothing to do with anything here. Malone seemed fine, but bland and rule-following, and he didn't want to give this kind of work to either of them. Not yet. Maybe there'd come a day where he was forced to, but for now, the public computer searches with some of Castle's advanced CIA servers would get him enough of what he needed.</p><p>But he had to wait a few more minutes. He purposefully sat back in the cafe chair and forced his mind away from the paranoia.</p><p>He sipped black coffee and read a book—one of Kate's Russian dramatists, the tattoo imprinted into his brain—and he delighted in the little notes she'd written in Russian in the margins. Showing off, practicing her slang, something. She'd been an enthusiastic student, even with obscure plays, and her handwritten comparisons between Anton Chekhov and Harold Pinter, her stress on the cultural meaning behind even short lines of Pushkin quoted by one of the characters, made the Three Sisters into a thrilling read.</p><p>Not for the sake of Chekhov. But for the sake of Beckett.</p><p>She'd be mortified if she knew just how revealing her college pursuit of Russian literature really was. She'd seen him take the collection of Chekhov's plays with him last time, but all she'd said to him was Don't spill any beer on it. She knew he was reading her library, slowly, but she thought he was a little melodramatic (her words) over it. He'd named himself after Kafka's book—the first of hers he'd read as she had slept pressed against his body, waiting on her to awaken.</p><p>He found it fitting that Beckett should be the instrument of his ever-widening knowledge. Boarding schools and military academies hadn't lent themselves to literature. He found himself craving Chekhov in the dead of night, sitting hunched over an off-road four-wheeler in a roadside ambush, waiting on his targets. Craving the words, the normal life, the frustrations of men and women who struggled to overcome. Rarely did they make it, and that appealed to him as well.</p><p>Chekhov’s characters never solved any problems, only created them. More and more until the thing was hopelessly snarled. Castle was a problem-solver, a fixer, and yet he found himself diving headlong into the messy, complicated shrapnel of these lives.</p><p>Of her life.</p><p>Be honest, Richard. Her life.</p><p>She was the thing that appealed to him, the troika striding forward on a winter road. That ancient three-horsed symbol of grim Russian determination in he face of insurmountable odds.</p><p>The laptop dinged. Incomplete results. Damn it. He’d need a deep search and possibly clearances.</p><p>Castle sighed and pushed the heavy book back into his backpack. He closed the laptop and slid it into the bag, zipped it, and slung the bag over his shoulders. He carried the to-go cup of coffee with him and headed for the nearby public library.</p><p>He had some public work he could do on her mother's case, a couple more searches to run before he gave up and asked Eastman for back doors and runarounds. From the library, he could do his general information gathering and he wouldn't pop up on the reports the CIA techs always ran. Public libraries were scrutinized—but not in this way. Castle could go digging into NYPD history and never once come up on Deleware and Malone's radar.</p><p>Or, most importantly, his father's.</p><p>Tomorrow’s debrief was going to be interesting. Castle was going to have to be prepared, just like a mission, plan his attack carefully.</p><p>He might ask Beckett tonight, actually, what she'd do. She was good at the psychological stuff—she'd been fantastic in interrogation tactics, top of her class.</p><p>He'd pick her brain. That was settled. Time for case work now.</p><p>-----</p><p>Richard made dinner with his remaining hours, not even sure she'd come home in time to eat it. But that was okay too; he knew better than anyone that she had a job to do.</p><p>He fed Cujo pieces of steak to win the wolf over again and soon he had a happy, adoring dog gazing up at him for more. He made a kind of steak stir fry, lots of fresh vegetables, easy to reheat if they had to. He'd taken the dog out once more after he'd gotten home, and the beast looked entirely content now, lazing on the kitchen floor at Castle's feet.</p><p>Good dog, though. Last night Beckett must have taken Cujo with her to get her dad, which meant the place Jim had taken his swan dive had been sketchy. Lately Jim had been in worse and worse places, no longer the upscale pubs and trendy wine bars, but the die-hard sticky-floored joints. Not even breweries any more.</p><p>That place in South Harlem where the guy hadn't even wanted to stick around; he'd been locking up and well on his way to leaving when he and Kate had arrived. These were not good places and at least Cujo looked and could act the part of the crazed wolf.</p><p>"Right, buddy?” he murmured, lifting a foot to pet the dog with his toes. He didn't want to have to wash his hands all over again.</p><p>He finished cutting up the green pepper and added it to the onions and carrots already in the skillet, the heat turned up. The steak strips were sizzling and all he needed were a few more dashes of steak sauce and it would be perfect. He'd concocted the steak sauce himself after Beckett had tried to push off that A1 crap on him. No, thanks. Too much salt. He wanted actual flavor, zest. His sauce was better and the whole stir fry was simmering in it. It'd be good. “Even you like my steak sauce, don’t you Cujo?”</p><p>The wolf yowled and laid down on the floor at his feet.</p><p>Richard grinned, drying off his hands on her dish towel as footsteps sounded in the apartment hallway. Quiet, slow approach. His instincts flared. A hand turned the doorknob, and Castle was already at his weapon, pulling it from the holster as the dog gave him a wary look. The door opened and he drew his gun.</p><p>Kate froze.</p><p>He cursed and lowered the weapon, heart pounding, and she took a cautious step into her apartment. The weariness and exasperation that had been on her face had swiftly changed to cautious concern, her mood changing like that.</p><p>He rubbed a hand over his jaw. "I thought you weren't... Right. It's six. I got it. I'm fine," he said, quickly holstering his gun.</p><p>Kate took off her NYPD jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch, eyeing him. "You sure?"</p><p>"Sure?"</p><p>"That you're fine," she stated. "That doesn't look fine. Looks jumpy."</p><p>"No, I just wasn't expecting you. I had to do some work today; my brain hasn't switched over."</p><p>"Your brain never really does switch over, does it?"</p><p>He opened his mouth and blinked but he didn't have an answer for that. Nor could he see what good it would do him to answer - he was doomed either way. Yes, you make me so crazy that I lose all common sense didn't seem a good way to start. But neither did You could never distract me from my job completely.</p><p>"It's okay, Rick. I understand." She hadn't changed into her civilian clothes; she'd come straight home and left those from this morning back at the 12th. Had she been hurrying for him? It was six o'clock, like she'd said before, and she'd made it in time for dinner to still be ready.</p><p>"Yeah," he answered, pointlessly. He unsnapped his holster and left his weapon on the counter where he'd have easy access, realizing he had to forgo the spy for now. She came closer, stepping into his space, and studied his face a moment.</p><p>He gave her a nod of acceptance—it was fine, his senses were perhaps on high alert—and he took the skillet off the burner and tried not to flinch when she stepped closer.</p><p>Kate slowly slid her arms around him. "You're okay," she murmured. “You’ll fly through debrief. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong.”</p><p>He took it, drawing in a shallow breath to keep from dislodging her, wrapping her in his arms in return.</p><p>"Smells good in here," she said against his shoulder. "Thank you. You had a rough time out there, baby. Your jaw is still bruised. And worse, I'm sure, that you haven't said."</p><p>He nodded without thinking, his throat tightening. But instead of keeping quiet, keeping his national security vow, he found himself telling her everything. "There was an explosion. A lot of them. It was supposed to be a simple thing—an exchange, money for guns—but the buyers turned on us. Some of the shipment was firebombed. Just. Fubar. Across the board. I heard from a guy that it was Scotland Yard, but if that's true, I should've heard about it."</p><p>She stroked the nape of his neck and softly kissed his jaw. This wasn't the woman so rigid about her shift in the 12th precinct; he didn't know what had caused the change, what she was thinking, but he had seen her face when she'd walked in the door—that second before she'd seen the gun and he'd stood down—and she hadn't been happy with him.</p><p>She'd come into the apartment ready to fight him on something, but his paranoia had turned over her compassion. He had seen before that she was most comfortable in his weakness, that her control was complete when his was scattered, but he hadn't been at the receiving end outside her bedroom.</p><p>Beckett had a soft side when it came to the underdog, the weak. She liked him strong, she wanted him impervious, she didn't tolerate any tenderness, but if he cracked, she was right there.</p><p>Fuck, he really loved her. He wanted to bury himself inside her, never come out again.</p><p>"Loosen up, baby," she murmured. "Hanging on me. Come on. Let's eat the dinner you made. No more guns tonight."</p><p>He gripped the back of her neck and squeezed once, and then he let her go.</p><p>“Let me change,” she murmured. She sauntered towards the hall, but he took note of the pleased look on her face.</p><p>Sometimes Kate needed to feel needed.</p><p>-----</p><p>She nudged him out of the way. “I can get this. You made dinner.”</p><p>“Together,” he compromised, giving ground but sticking close.</p><p>“It’s kind of a one-person job,” she said.</p><p>“But we can make it two.”</p><p>She glanced at him and shrugged, as if it made no difference to her at all. She was running hot water into the large skillet, and she seemed intent on that rather than anything else.</p><p>He handed her the brush. “You scrub the dishes and I’ll load them in. How about that?”</p><p>“Sure.” She took the scrub brush from him and worked silently for a moment, handing him each thing as she rinsed it for the dishwasher. He tried to be quiet too, kept his mouth shut, but his head always raced with things to say, to connect with her, find out what she was thinking.</p><p>“So the thing in Ireland,” he started, unable to help himself.</p><p>“Yeah?” It was a question, but only barely. She sounded patently uncurious. He was pretty sure that she wanted to know, but he couldn’t have told by the tone of her voice.</p><p>“I had to blow my cover to get out of custody,” he admitted. “Scotland Yard wasn’t supposed to be there, and they were pretty brutal. It wasn’t good.”</p><p>“Brutal.” She glanced over at him and he saw the flicker across her face. She was dying to know. “You had to tell them who you were... it was that bad?”</p><p>Oh. Shit. Maybe that wasn’t something to share. “Well. I had—uh, they were going to transfer us to—ah, yeah. Yeah.”</p><p>“Did Scotland Yard do this?” she murmured, lifting wet fingers to his jaw.</p><p>He glanced over at her, felt her touch linger against his skin. “Yeah.”</p><p>“And the bruises on your back,” she said, not even a question. “You have a map of the world in bruises down your spine.”</p><p>He shrugged against her flat tone, unwilling to dwell on his mistakes. “Yeah, I fucked up. But now at least I’m not stuck in Ireland. When I really just want to be here.”</p><p>She stiffened.</p><p>He nudged past her and grabbed the last pan from the sink. He did the scrubbing himself, put it in the dishwasher to give her time with that. He meant it—he wanted to be with her. Of course, he’d get a new assignment but until then—</p><p>Yeah, fuck, he had to play it off. He’d revealed too much and now he had to tone it down.</p><p>“I mean, Kate, really, six weeks without sex really sucks. Want to stick close to home so I can at least get it on the regular,” he grinned.</p><p>She let out a strange, choked breath. “Six—six weeks without sex?”</p><p>Castle froze but the movement of the dishwasher door kept going, rising up to clang hard against the racks inside. He stared at her. “Why is that a question?” he rasped.</p><p>“You don’t—Like you can’t get sex in Ireland,” she scoffed.</p><p>“Fuck,” he gasped. He felt punched in the gut. How could she not know? “What the hell? I’m not fucking anyone in Ireland.”</p><p>She stepped back from, grabbed the dishcloth from its hook over the sink, drying her hands in sharp, jerky movements. Her cheeks were flushed; she looked anywhere but at him.</p><p>“Kate,” he said. “What the fuck? Are you kidding me? There’s no fucking way you think that. Why would I—wait, are you fucking someone else?”</p><p>She rounded on him furiously. “You don’t get to ask. You’re a damn spy. I know nothing about you. Your fucking name is made up, Richard. I don’t expect you to go six weeks without being at least required to fuck some other girl.”</p><p>“I’m not fucking some other girl,” he roared. Was she out of her mind? “I can damn well promise you I’m not going to be plowing some bitch and then come back here like nothing happened.”</p><p>“It’s your damn job,” she yelled back, stalking away from him and scraping her hand through her hair. She turned back around, pointing a finger at him. “You aren’t even here. You’re there, and why the hell would fucking me a few times every other month, every six months, preclude you from at least maintaining some kind of cover relationship over there? I’m not naive. I know how the world works.”</p><p>“What the fuck is wrong with you?”</p><p>“Holy shit, Richard, what am I supposed to think? You’re a fucking spy. And you get it up like five times in fifteen minutes. I don’t expect you to go six damn weeks with nothing.”</p><p>He stared at her, gaping, a fucking hole ripped right through him. “Why is that suddenly a bad thing? You fucking like it.”</p><p>“Well, fuck yes, I like it, you asshole. I like sex. But so do you. And six weeks without-”</p><p>“You’ve been fucking someone else,” he gasped. “Kate. Behind my back. God.”</p><p>She growled at him and threw a couch cushion at his head. He ducked on instinct and it sailed past, hit the coffee table and knocked over the vase of flowers he’d bought Friday when he’d come home.</p><p>Home. Fucking hell. He was the damn naive one.</p><p>“I never said I was fucking someone else,” she hissed. But her eyes seemed to be lying. And that twisted his guts. “I’m saying why the hell aren’t you?”</p><p>“You want me to cheat on you. What the hell?”</p><p>“I want you to do your damn job. Let’s not kid ourselves, Richard. All part of the spy-charm, I’m sure. You probably have to seduce a hundred girls to get the information you need; the world’s secrets are whispered over pillows-”</p><p>“Don’t be a bitch,” he snapped. He strode forward and snagged her wrist, dragging her body into his. “I don’t fuck them. I don’t seduce a hundred girls to get what I want. You know why I took your picture? Because it’s part of my damn cover, Beckett. Do you know how it kills me to hear you say this shit?”</p><p>She glared at him, not backing down an inch.</p><p>“You’re crazy if you think I’d have anyone else,” he rasped. He drew his arm around her hips and thrust his body into hers, forced her to feel him. “You’re deluding yourself if you think I’d get it up for anyone but you. You think five times in fifteen minutes is just how good I am? No, baby, it’s you. I didn’t realize I had to say point blank, but you’re the only one I’m fucking.”</p><p>She turned her head away. “Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know?” she growled.</p><p>“How the fuck do you not?” He gripped her ass and squeezed, grinding his pelvis into hers. He wanted to attack her, crush her body under his, claim every hollow place with his furious cock.</p><p>“Fuck, stop being such a damn bully. How the hell am I supposed to actually know anything real about you? Your fucking name is made up. You’re gone for nine weeks at a time, three months, six months, and you aren’t allowed to call, and when you’re here, you’re nothing like your real self. I saw you that night in Brighton Beach. I saw you, who you are, when you killed five men—”</p><p>“That’s not who I am” he shouted, slamming her back against the wall. She grit her teeth and her shoulders tensed and he rocked his hips into her, aching with it. “You know that’s not me. Say you know it.”</p><p>“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about you. You’re a spy and you do as you fucking please and I don’t need you to be anything more than that. So no. I don’t know, Richard.”</p><p>He gripped the back of her neck and squeezed, fingers tangling in her hair. “God damn it, Kate Beckett, let me make it loud and clear.” He leaned in too close, his forehead to hers, his hips pinning hers to the wall. “There is no one else. There will be no one else.”</p><p>He shoved his hand into her leggings and straight to her sex. She groaned into the assault of his fingers, and he finally found that wet, hot haven between her legs.</p><p>She was burning for him. “You fucking better be wet only for me,” he growled at her throat, biting her neck and sucking hard. “I only get hard for you, Beckett, and you better damn well remember that.”</p><p>She was clawing at his shirt, yanking it off of him, and he rubbed ruthlessly at her sex, avoiding her clit just to piss her off, to punish her for not knowing, for thinking otherwise, for making him think for a moment there she wasn’t in this with him.</p><p>She was moaning into his mouth and her hips were making this nasty little jerk against his hand. He slicked through her folds to make her burn, rocking his body into hers and slamming her back against the wall with each thrust. She had her leg up around his hip to climb him, trying to get closer, and it only made him all the more furious.</p><p>“We are fucking exclusive,” he husked in her ear. “You hear me? No one else.”</p><p>“Fuck,” she gasped. “Why not—why not a fucking girl on every continent?”</p><p>“No one else better do this to you,” he growled at her neck, sinking his teeth into her flesh. She yelped and rubbed her hand at his groin, struggling with his zipper. “No one else, Kate. I’m the only one who can put my hand here.”</p><p>“I bet you say that to all of them, don’t you? When they get pathetic.”</p><p>“You better not even think it. You are the only one,” he stressed, felt his voice breaking. He was so angry with her, so fucking heartbroken that it only made him want to fuck her harder, break her open. “Take off your pants.”</p><p>“You take them off.”</p><p>He dragged his hand away from her sex and she whined, but he was already yanking her leggings down and ripping them off. She shed her own t-shirt—his had been stripped from him already—and now she was unzipping him and bringing his cock out of his boxers.</p><p>Her hand squeezed painfully and she lifted her head to him, her eyes burning with greed. “This is mine.”</p><p> </p><p>“Fuck,” he growled. “You better fucking believe me. It’s for no one else.”</p><p>“I want it,” she said, chafing him. “Right here. Right now. Fuck me, Castle.”</p><p>He didn’t bother undressing her further; he hooked his finger in the waistband of her panties and dragged them down just far enough for him to widen her legs and push himself into that narrow, hot space.</p><p>She shifted her hips, squirmed to get him closer. Panted his name as they both arranged things.</p><p>And then he thrust his cock home, drove her back against the wall.</p><p>“Fuck,” she gasped.</p><p>“This is what you do to me,” he groaned in her ear. “This. Every time. No one else.”</p><p>“Fuck me hard,” she whispered.</p><p>He thrust deep and gripped her thighs to keep her legs together, the close, tight space of her like a vise around his cock. She moaned, bucking to meet him. He sank his teeth into her neck and sucked, a hand gripping her breast as he claimed her.</p><p>She was writhing in jerky movements against him, between his unforgiving body and the plane of the wall. He could hear her bones grinding as he thrust home, again and again. Her body clenched around him at his agonizing retreat, so slow and measured, then jerked as he slammed inside her again.</p><p>She was grunting every time he bottomed out. Her arms wrapped tight around his neck, pulling him down to her breasts. He hunched awkwardly to put his mouth on her nipple, suckling and gnawing, imprinting his teeth marks against the flesh, and he could feel her trembling now, unable to hold it in.</p><p>“You fucking come,” he said into her chest, right above her heart. “You come for me.”</p><p>She keened as she shattered apart around his cock. It was a lightning storm that ripped through him as well. He came at once, rutting inside her, and pinned her to the wall, crushing them together for the last paroxysms of climax.</p><p>He was wiped out, sapped of his strength with the power of that kind of need. His knees hit the wall and her body slumped over his. He wrapped his arms around her limp form, managed to stand up straight to carry her back to bed.</p><p>“No one else,” he rasped against her temple, hoping, hoping it was true for her as well.</p><p>Even though he knew, he knew by the way she’d moved with him, the desperation in it, that it hadn’t been true.</p><p>She’d fucked someone while he’d been gone.</p><p>He laid her down on the mattress and she tightened her legs around his hips, moaned. Her lashes fluttered as she stared up at him. “Stay. Stay. I want you.”</p><p>“I’m staying.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“You made me bleed.”</p><p>“You deserved it,” she shot back.</p><p>“You fucking clawed me like a cat. A little—baby—cat.”</p><p>“Shut up.”</p><p>“Kitten,” he grinned down at her, thrusting his hips into her soft places. Wet and soft and ready for him.</p><p>“I will fucking make you hurt.”</p><p>“Oh?” Like she hadn’t already, like his heart wasn’t still a raw and bloodied thing hanging in his chest. “Like to see you try.”</p><p>She hooked a leg behind his and flipped him neatly onto his back, palms planted on his shoulders. “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t said that.”</p><p>“Wish I hadn’t said a lot of things, baby. Some things wish I’d said sooner.”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes at him, not at all liking that reference, and she leaned past him to her bedside table, withdrew the handcuffs.</p><p>And the blindfold.</p><p>He gripped her thighs, his heart already rocketing up into his mouth, burning his throat.</p><p>“You want to hurt, Rick? I can make you hurt.”</p><p>It wasn’t him, was it? It was her. She was hurt. A girl on every continent. How many nights had she lain in bed and he hadn’t called and she’d assumed he’d gotten his fucking rocks off with someone else? She was vulnerable and she hated it, and she didn’t know how else to make it okay except by fucking him. Her way.</p><p>“Do your worst,” he rasped. Because maybe then you’ll believe me.</p><p>She leaned in over him, her breasts tantalizingly close as she drew the blindfold over his head. His vision disappeared behind the black, but he could feel her, close and warm and strong, her hands sliding down his chest. She closed her fingers around his wrists and drew his arms up over his head.</p><p>“Grip the headboard,” she told him. Her voice was husky, that tenor he loved, a little uncontrolled, bordering the wild country. He closed his hands around metal-worked frame and took a deep breath in, smelling sweat and her soap and the tang of arousal.</p><p>Suddenly her lips dusted his mouth, a quick and burning touch, and he whined for it, wanted it back, surprised by how it took him.</p><p>She cuffed him, the chain clinking against the metal and holding him there. He felt her throw off the covers and come back to straddle his hips, and he bucked up into her just to have her settle low over him.</p><p>“I know you hate not being able to see me,” she murmured. “You hate not knowing. Not knowing if I like it, if you’re pleasing me. You read too much in my eyes, but I can’t seem to stop giving it away.”</p><p>He grunted and squeezed the metal, shifting his thighs. She skimmed his sides with her fingers and her breasts were pressed against him as she softly kissed his chin.</p><p>“You see too much of me,” she breathed at his lips. “Don’t you, love? You know me better than I like, know more about me than maybe anyone. I hate to talk. But I wind up saying more than I should, I say things I never meant to.”</p><p>That was an apology. Wasn’t it? She had just breathed an apology into his mouth with her tongue darting out along his lips. A touch of wet warmth for every sentence. He widened his thighs and wanted to cradle her, wanted to carry her down into him, but she resisted.</p><p>“You may be blinded, but you won’t be in the dark.” Her nipples rubbed against his chest. “You can’t see all my tells, the ways I give away my hand. But this time, baby, I’ll talk. For you. Every moment of this. I’ll give you the words.”</p><p>He groaned and craned his neck, found her mouth right there and waiting for him. Castle sucked on her tongue and tried to draw her down, into him, deeper, but she danced around it, kept it surface.</p><p>Her thumbs rubbed circles around his nipples and he cried out in her mouth.</p><p>“Oh,” she hummed. “I love the sounds you make for me.”</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>“I’m already wet. I’ve been wet since you yelled at me in the living room. Indignant and pissed. Are you still angry?”</p><p>“Kate,” he groaned. His fingers slipped from the metal to reach for her, but he was yanked back by the cuffs. He growled into darkness, jerked his hips up into her heated flesh.</p><p>“You are. And you know I am too. I hate what you’ve done to me, but I need it. Castle, God, I need it so badly.”</p><p>He hated the fucking blindfold. “Baby, let me—let me just—I just want you, Kate. Kate, please.”</p><p>Her mouth worked a steady trail down his jaw and to his neck. “Not yet.” She sank her teeth into his adam’s apple. He choked and jerked against the cuffs trying grab her, grab hold, and her knees tightened at his ribs.</p><p>She licked the wound, around and around, and then she spoke into his skin. “This is how it feels. This is what you’ve done to me. I want to mark you like you’ve marked me. Deep where it can’t be seen, where it’s felt like a rawness. You keep putting your tongue against the spot—” She touched his broken skin with the flat of her tongue. “—but all you do is make it worse, bring it achingly sharp and in focus.”</p><p>“Oh, Kate.” He gritted his teeth and tried to draw up his knees, just to get her closer, but she reached down and slapped his flank. He startled, legs dropping for her, panting at the sting of her palm to the outside of his ass. “Kate. Kate, I really can’t take much more.”</p><p>“I need to know, first,” she whispered. Her fingers were fondling his nipples, rubbing and teasing, and he felt her now rock slowly against his belly, her arousal wet on his skin. “I need you to tell me, Rick.”</p><p>“Anything,” he croaked, gripping the headboard and thrusting his hips up. She countered and brought him back down to the mattress, her mouth touching his again, dancing away.</p><p>“Tell me,” she whispered. “The truth.”</p><p>“I have, I do, I always do,” he groaned. He was shaking with it, the agony of being rebuffed, held away, teased along the fine edge of desperation. He’d do anything, tell her anything, just— “What the hell is this, I can’t stand it much longer, why won’t you just—”</p><p>“Your body, like this, is like a lie detector test. You prove yourself when I have you at my mercy.” She licked his bottom lip and he whimpered. “You’re broken down into your most basic elements, Rick. If I give up too much to you, then here, like this, you give up too much to me.”</p><p>And now he knew. “You think I’d let anyone else do this to me?” he scraped out. “Blindfold me, drag me within an inch of my life, control me? No one but you. Only you.”</p><p>She painted her wet cunt against his hip and he cried out. Everything trembled. A kind of rage in him met the rage he felt coming off her body—that he had anything to prove after everything, that she still refused to see it.</p><p>And then the rage melted down into the molten sea of lust and he couldn’t stave off the craven need to have her. Right now. “Have mercy, Kate. I need you.”</p><p>She sealed her mouth over his and stroked her tongue inside, taking, and then he felt her hands caressing his pelvis, her body shifting. Fingers at his cock.</p><p>“When you leave,” she whispered. Her sex was sliding along his cock, rubbing wet and playful, a direct contrast to the darkness in her voice. “When you leave, I think I’ve made you up.”</p><p>He moaned and pitched his hips up into her, found himself at her entrance but unable to get inside. He wanted inside. “I don’t leave you because I want to. I don’t want to leave you,” he begged. “It’s my job.”</p><p>“I know,” she whispered. Her body angled just right and she sank down over him, warm and painfully tight, his cock spearing her. She sucked in a hard breath, shuddered, went still. “And that’s why I was certain you would with other women. For your job. That takes you away.”</p><p>“No,” he cried out. Thrashed in the darkness. “No, it’s not part of it. This could never be part of it. How could anything be this good?”</p><p>“But it is part of it,” she breathed against him. Her lips rubbed his lips raw, back and forth until he was on fire with it.</p><p>“Not this. Not this.” He shook his head, tried to suck a kiss from her elusive mouth. “It’s not. It’s more,” he pleaded.</p><p>“I don’t know what it is,” she confessed. Her withdraw from around his cock had him throwing his head back in blind lust. “I don’t know anything.” She sank down again on him and he was fully sheathed inside her. So deep. So good. “I don’t even know who you are.”</p><p>He jerked against the cuffs, forgetting how she’d bound him. He couldn’t even touch her. Couldn’t persuade her with his hands. Couldn’t bring her back into the magic of feeling how good this was without the ability to touch her.</p><p>Maybe that was why she’d done it like this.</p><p>And so his words left him in a rush, desperate and demanding. “Say you know me,” he growled. He thrust his hips up in time to his need, driving a rhythm to match the fierce hurt. The wound of her disbelief. “Say you know who I am, that the job isn’t me, that I’m more than that with you, say you know-”</p><p>“Rick.” She planted her hands on his shoulders and forcibly held him down, bore down on him. Her leg swept under his and kicked out his ankles so that he lost his leverage and collapsed.</p><p>She was on top. Distant.</p><p>He whined and jerked to get at her, rattling her headboard with the damn cuffs. He jerked again, trying to force the connection, trying to just reach her.</p><p>“Rick,” she breathed.</p><p>“Say you know me,” he yelled. Furious tears pricked his eyes. “Say you know better—”</p><p>“I know,” she promised, her hands dragging up his sides and cradling his face. “I know, love. Hush. It’s okay. This is what’s real. I can see it now.”</p><p>“Yes,” he cried out. The relief was so great it triggered a rush of orgasm. He found himself climaxing inside the tight certain grip of her body, a great wave of pleasure that left him shaky and stranded.</p><p>Kate reached up over his head and loosened his hands from the metal pipe, laced their fingers together. Softly kissed the knuckles of one hand before planting them beside his head.</p><p>And then she rode the last of his beating erection.</p><p>Her body met his with a resounding force, her body strung out over his and grinding away. She moaned in his ear, beautiful words, dirty words, telling him how good it was, how hard he still was for her, how she could burn like this forever now that she knew.</p><p>He could only rock into her, help her along, until finally he ushered her to her own release.</p><p>She climaxed on a cry, the gripping contractions of her cunt magnified by the absolute darkness of the blindfold. All he felt, all he knew, was the dizzying ferocity of her release.</p><p>He came again inside her, a wretched throbbing that wrung him out, and he dropped his head back to the pillow, panting. Dizzy. Blind.</p><p>Kate’s fingers unlaced from his and she thumbed open the restraints, drawing his wrists together and then down between their sweat-slicked bodies. She coasted her hands back up to his cheeks and pushed off the blindfold.</p><p>“You can open your eyes,” she rasped.</p><p>He didn’t know if he actually could.</p><p>Instead he wrapped his arms around her and turned them, burying his closed eyes into her neck, taking in deep, shuddering breaths. He almost didn’t want to see what he’d done to her, what the unknown and unasked had caused.</p><p>“You’re okay,” she murmured. “I got you. I got you.”</p><p>He opened his mouth to speak and found his throat scratched and shredded. Had he screamed? “You’re my girl on any continent. You make it good.”</p><p>“I know,” she said. “I know. Your heart is racing, Rick. It’s okay. I know.”</p><p>Now.</p><p>He tightened his arms around her and hung on because he was afraid she was only telling him what he needed to hear.</p><p>He was desperate to tell her he loved her, but now he knew she’d never believe it. He was a man of lies. Shadows. A man whose pillow talk involved state secrets.</p><p>When he left, she thought he was impossible. And so she told herself that the real man must be the spy, not the one who let himself be blindfolded and undone in her bed.</p><p>He clutched her neck and she rubbed the hair at his nape and he was afraid.</p><p>He was afraid she was right.</p><p>Rick Castle was only a cover.</p><p>-----</p><p>He couldn't find the will to move away from her. He kept his face buried in her neck and still his heart pounded and his sweat dried to his skin and she just stroked her fingers through his hair, again and again, her other hand rubbing his upper back.</p><p>"I know," she murmured at his temple. "I know. I know."</p><p>He was wrecked. He couldn't drag himself back together. She'd done this to him, broken him; he was in pieces and he didn't even know how to pull those pieces back together. What image was he trying to make? What was the real man?</p><p>"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I won't—we won't do that again. I know you hate it. I'm sorry—"</p><p>"No," he got out, tightening his arm around her, choking on the force of his denial. "No, no, it's good. Good, love. Just breaks me."</p><p>"Okay," she said softly.</p><p>"Breaks me," he sighed against her.</p><p>"I broke you?"</p><p>"Tiny little pieces, Beckett." He nuzzled in closer, realizing for the first time that she was letting him. "A million pieces. Don't even know who I am."</p><p>"I know who you are." Her fingers stroked. "I know."</p><p>He closed his eyes again and tightened around her; she must have felt his tension because she drew her knee up at his hip, cradling him. He didn't think she did know, not really. At the very least, she doubted it, him, and this whole time he'd been holding the realness of her close inside him like an icon, something to touch and pray to, something to have hope.</p><p>And she’d had nothing. She’d lain in bed and thought he would—</p><p>"Stop, stop. I'm sorry. It's not you, Rick. It's me. I don't do this well."</p><p>He sucked in a breath and let it out again, his mouth at the slope of her shoulder. "If you don't believe me, no one... who else is going to—Kate. God. Kate, I don't have anyone else. Just sometimes, I have you."</p><p>Her palm pressed flat to his bruised back, the dull yellow where it had begun to heal. "You have me here," she rasped. He could hear her heart rabbiting under his ear with just that small confession. He couldn't address it, push it, or she'd bolt.</p><p>Rick cupped her hip and dragged them both over so he could lie on his back and recover. She nuzzled down into his side, and he wrapped both arms around her. She had these rules about them, she had these unspoken limits about how far he could go and what he could do, but not in the bedroom. When they had sex, anything went. He could do whatever the hell he wanted to her and she'd be giving it right back, but the second it went from unspoken to direct, she was gone.</p><p>She wasn't about to let him say what his heart broke to say. She'd never allow it, and because she hadn't allowed it from the beginning, he hadn’t said it. And now she'd never believe it.</p><p>Her own damn rules. He was tired of those rules, but worse, tired of her not knowing him. "You said be cool," he said, throat working as he swallowed. "I'm trying to be cool, I’ve been trying. I know you can't hear—” He closed his eyes, aborted that trained of thought. No good confronting her with her limitations. Make it about himself, and she’d respond. She always did. “I'm trying, Kate, but it's obvious I'm really bad at it. Obvious I can’t be cool, let it be what it is. You have to know that you're—that I could never..." He growled and gave up.</p><p>What was he supposed to say? You're special to me? That was entirely lame and worthless. It all sounded like some line a spy would say, and he was left with nothing. No way to prove himself.</p><p>Except let her break him like this. Let her blindfold him and handcuff him to her bed until he couldn't find himself any more. If she shattered everything, then there weren't any lies, no place to hide the truth. If she took him in ways no spy should ever allow, if all of his defenses were dust, then maybe she would come to understand what it meant.</p><p>What she meant to him.</p><p>Kate was silent, cheek pressed to his shoulder, taking shallow, quick breaths. He wrapped his arm around her neck and shifted back into her again. She grunted when his body landed on top of hers, but she embraced him again, took him again, gave him the chance to start over.</p><p>“I’m no good at this,” he confessed, lips brushing her eyebrow. “I’m no good at giving you what you need.”</p><p>"It's not you," she murmured. Her breath at his neck, her fingers digging into his back. "You're just fine. You're doing exactly what I want, Rick."</p><p>But not what she needed.</p><p>"I just want you," he pleaded, burying his face in her neck. "Please. Can't I just have you?"</p><p>"You do. You have me.” Like she was consoling a mewling child. Her fingers skimmed his spine. “Right here, Rick. Don't you feel me? Focus on all the places where our skins kiss. Where I'm touching you. The weight of my hand against your back and my lips against your ear."</p><p>He took in a ragged breath. He could feel her, everywhere. Pressing insistently up into his body, her legs widening to cradle him. She never took a damn thing for herself; she only seemed to give way when he needed reassurance. How fucked up was that?</p><p>What kind of relationship could he possibly offer her?</p><p>She pressed a kiss under his jaw, spoke in a low and cautious voice. "How did your back get so bruised, sweetheart?"</p><p>"I got a beating."</p><p>"Oh.” Her fingers dug into his neck. “Oh, Rick."</p><p>"It only hurts while they do it. It doesn't hurt now."</p><p>She sucked in a breath. "Oh, love."</p><p>"I can handle it."</p><p>"I know. I know. Scotland Yard did this?"</p><p>"Yeah. In custody. I'm okay."</p><p>"Did they kick you?"</p><p>"Yeah. I'm okay, Kate. I’ve had worse from my own father."</p><p>"It's not okay with me," she cracked. "It's not okay. I don't want you hurt. You shouldn’t be hurt."</p><p>Oh. Oh.</p><p>She was talking about them. She meant she hadn't wanted to hurt him. Whoever it was she’d had in her bed, whoever she’d used—it hadn’t been to hurt him. And now, tonight, the cuffs and blindfold, the fight in her living room.</p><p>He was learning. He was figuring her out.</p><p>Castle lifted his head from her neck and studied the shine of her eyes, the grief lurking inside her like a ghost. He cupped her cheek and touched his mouth to hers.</p><p>"Even when it hurts," he murmured, "I’m so alive. You make me feel again."</p><p>-----</p><p>Richard was lying on his stomach with her curled along his side, warm and lazy. Her fingers trailed over his back, mapping his bruises as if to encourage him to talk. And he did. He confessed things when she touched him. He hoped the force of his words, the volume, could tell her what she didn't seem able to believe.</p><p>She was the only one. Only one to hear his stories, only one to touch him like this. She skated her fingers over his spine, her breasts pressed against his arm to stay close, and he just kept talking. Telling her things, anything, whatever came to his mind, whatever he himself was just beginning to discover.</p><p>It was like he’d been so locked down for so long, he didn’t even know his own preferences.</p><p>"Yeah, I like pizza," he blushed. She’d caught him ordering in one too many times. "And it doesn't even have to be the expensive kind. Just loaded with cheese and sauce. The sauce at that place down the street from Remy's—it's so good. You ordered it that first week, when we shut the door on the world and fucked like rabbits?” She grinned and he grinned back. “You showed me that, how good it could be. Olives and green pepper or squash and zucchini or chicken and BBQ sauce. All kinds. Cheap, fast pizza. Damn."</p><p>"Pizza," she chuckled. "And cheeseburgers. You like cheeseburgers."</p><p>He found himself smiling against the pillow, unfurled his fingers along the slope of her jaw where she was so close. "Mm, Remy's burgers are the best. I just order what you order and it's always good. And fries. Sweet potato fries. Or the curly fries. And milkshakes."</p><p>"You really like cheeseburgers," she hummed. She craned her neck and dropped a kiss on his lips. "And those cupcakes."</p><p>"Oh, hell, yeah. Those cupcakes. I could eat a cupcake every day."</p><p>"If you were here," she said, like a reminder. Her fingers snagged in his hair. "What about the Italian place I took you—Angelo's? That night you showed up—a Wednesday night—and I had all those reports."</p><p>"Fuck me, that veal parmesan. I love veal, I do. I'm not gonna lie and say I've never had it before. But Angelo’s. And the ravioli. The veal ravioli. I've never had it in Italy taste that good."</p><p>"Angelo's is unique," she agreed. "Oh, and I bet I can guess your favorite color."</p><p>Favorite color? People did that?</p><p>"Black," she teased, rubbing her fingers over his neck. "Every shirt you own is black. Every time you show up after some mission—black shirt."</p><p>"Black," he echoed. "I never thought about colors being favorites."</p><p>"No?"</p><p>"No. What's your favorite color, Kate?"</p><p>"Purple. Sometimes blue."</p><p>"Oh," he said, surprised. He'd never have chosen purple for her. "Mine could be purple."</p><p>"No," she laughed, gripping his hair. "It has to be what you—you know—what appeals to you."</p><p>"You in those purple lace panties appeals to me greatly."</p><p>“The ones you stole.” She leaned in and dusted a kiss over his cheek in reward. "What you gravitate towards, Rick. When you think of what's most comfortable, where you feel at home—"</p><p>"Here," he sighed. "Your place is kind of—there's earth brown and fresh green and all this—I like brown. Brown is my favorite color."</p><p>"Brown," she repeated. Her voice sounded thick. "Okay, baby. Brown."</p><p>"You look good in brown too," he murmured. "I saw that shimmery copper swimsuit in your bottom drawer. It's stuffed under the bulky sweaters but that thing is unmistakeable. You definitely look good in copper."</p><p>"You've never seen me in it. How do you know?"</p><p>"I have a vivid imagination, Beckett."</p><p>"Hmm." A scratch of her finger down his spine.</p><p>He nudged the pillow down to get closer. "So what other favorites do people have?"</p><p>"You have a favorite book? You've been reading a lot of mine."</p><p>Any book you've scribbled your notes inside . Probably not the ideal answer. "I like Chekhov a lot. More than just his plays. He's unflinching."</p><p>"Oh, good word," she sighed. "Unflinching. His characters just have a lot of problems."</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"Which never get solved."</p><p>“Yeah, I know."</p><p>She chuckled and her thumb stroked around his ear. "I don't exactly see you as the type to wallow in unfixable problems."</p><p>"I know, right? Not me at all. Something about it." How Chekhov reminded him of her.</p><p>He loved her.</p><p>She studied him a moment, and then she had another kiss for the corner of his eye, her mouth soft. She loved him too. He could feel it, everywhere, he could feel it with her touch and her eyes on him and her investigation into his favorites. She'd told him Well, let's find out what kind of man you are. Tell me your favorite song. And it'd gone from there.</p><p>She loved him too. There were no other men, not now, not for her. She'd been so angry with him precisely because of that, because he'd wrecked her for anything other than this.</p><p>He was glad for that at least. He couldn't survive if she wasn't in this too.</p><p>-----</p><p>"Don't you have to go?" she whispered. Her body was warm and curved to meet his, their knees kissing. Fingers touching.</p><p>"Flight's at four," he answered, playing absently with the ends of her hair. "Military flight. I should leave around three or so."</p><p>"Oh." She closed her eyes again, the darkness around them so complete that he couldn't see her anyway. Sometimes the shine of her eyes as she watched him, but when that was gone, it was like being blindfolded again.</p><p>"You want to come with me?" he said.</p><p>Her eyes popped open. "What."</p><p>"Come with me," he scraped out. His pulse jacked up, his adrenaline dumping into his blood and pulsing so hard that he was shaking the mattress with it.</p><p>"Castle," she scolded. "I have a job. And so do you."</p><p>"I know. I know, but—a day? Can you take today? You have Sunday off. I'll have you back here by then."</p><p>"You can't promise that," she said quietly. She sounded dangerous. "I can't just—take a weekend off to be a spy groupie."</p><p>"It's not like that."</p><p>"What am I supposed to even be doing while you're being a spy?"</p><p>"Oh."</p><p>"I have to work," she said, turning now and putting her back to him. "And my shift is early. It’s impossible."</p><p>"Right," he murmured. He couldn't stand to have her back to him, not even touching. He wrapped his arm around her waist and scooted in close, framing her with his body. "But I could get you back by Monday morning. I can promise that. If that's the thing holding you—"</p><p>"Richard."</p><p>"Right. Stupid idea." But it wasn't. He wanted to share something of the life with her. And if she couldn’t come with him, then he could tell her what it was like. "You'd make a good spy. Intelligent, resourceful, quick on your feet. Willing to adapt."</p><p>"Willing to adapt?" she scoffed. "Babe, that is not me."</p><p>"Sure it is. Or well, flexible. Let's say that. You can adapt, and quickly."</p><p>She didn't say anything to that but she shifted deeper into his arms, allowed him to tuck his chin into the slope where her neck met her shoulder. He kissed her skin and held her loosely, trying not to smother her after that idiotic come with me declaration.</p><p>"Have you ever been to the Greek islands?" he asked.</p><p>"Went by on a boat," she admitted. "I had a semester abroad in Kiev, Ukraine, and during free travel I made the most of it."</p><p>He'd known she spoke the language, but he hadn't realized the backstory. "Kiev. Any Ukranian, or is it just Russian?"</p><p>"We were in a formal educational institution—they spoke Russian, so that's what we learned. I picked up a few words of Ukranian, but the slang is so different that I'd be afraid of unintentionally insulting someone."</p><p>He chuckled. "I did that once. Spanish—there are a hundred local dialects in any Spanish-speaking country. I was in Mexico for a thing with a drug cartel—this was right out of training—and I told a boy that I had licked his mother."</p><p>She laughed and her fingers spread along his, interdigitated. "Hm, and had you?"</p><p>"No. Not his mother. His sister, but he didn't need to know that."</p><p>"His sister? How old was this kid?"</p><p>"Hey, now. I was nineteen. His sister was twenty-one."</p><p>"Oh-ho," she said, drawing it out. "An older woman. Rawr."</p><p>"Shut up. She was—Uh, shit, why are we talking about this? That was ages ago. I was nineteen."</p><p>"Young and naive," she hummed. "Did she seduce you, Rick? Captivate you with her feminine wiles?"</p><p>"No," he huffed. "That would be you. Captivating me with feminine wiles. I don't even remember her name—oh wait. Pilar. Oh, that's right. Pilar. She was my first."</p><p>Kate went still, her fingers tight through his. "Your—first?"</p><p>"Yeah. Sex. First time. In Mexico. I used protection, of course—oh, shit, sorry. I promise it's—"</p><p>"No, no," she gasped, a little laugh caught in her throat. "Not what I—nineteen was your first?"</p><p>"Tended to, you know, stick to myself. My father doesn't really encourage extracurriculars. If he knew I was involved in a relationship, I think he'd fucking hit the roof. Holy shit, I do not look forward to that."</p><p>Kate didn't say anything, but he felt in her that quiet and listening silence in his arms. He rubbed his lips to her shoulder blade and hastily reviewed what he'd said, tried to see if any of that was really that bad.</p><p>"Kate, I'm not ashamed of you or anything. I just can't—for your own—for both our sakes, I want to keep you to myself. You'd have to fill out all this paperwork and a deep background check and then—"</p><p>"I'd what?" she rasped. "Background check. For what?"</p><p>"For this. They call it... an incident report."</p><p>"An incident."</p><p>"A—ah, shit—technically this would be a close encounter."</p><p>"Close encounter," she said flatly. Her body was taut in his arms and he pressed in closer, trying to keep her from moving away. But then her hand squeezed suddenly around his, the tension resolved. "I'd say this was multiple close encounters. At least three a night."</p><p>He let out a long breath, shaky, his laugh more relief than anything. "Yeah, baby. Definitely."</p><p>"Why haven't you done that? Followed the rules, filed your report. You're usually..."</p><p>"Such a stickler? Yeah, I know. Because... because this is between just us. Not him. You're all I got, Kate, and I don't want—typing it up on the computer and assigning it 'subject' and 'participant' and those kinds of terms just makes me want to smash my fist into the wall."</p><p>She brought their joined hands up to her lips and eased a kiss to his knuckles. "Don't do that."</p><p>"Yeah, no. I won't. I just want you for myself."</p><p>"Okay. I don't relish a background check. Bad enough sitting through the polygraph for the NYPD."</p><p>"Yeah, they'd do that to you too. But it's a lot more... let’s say, advanced."</p><p>"Ah. Extreme rendition, huh? All your girls get that dubious honor, Rick Castle?"</p><p>He grunted and nipped his teeth at her neck. "No other girls. And the other times I filed a damn incident report."</p><p>He opened his palm and turned their hands to cradle the side of her face. He leaned in over her and kissed the corner of her mouth, innocent and warm, and she sighed and rolled her body under his.</p><p>"How about another close encounter before you have to go?" she murmured.</p><p>"Yeah, love. Let me take my time with you," he whispered. "You deserve all the time I've got."</p><p>-----</p><p>He took her slowly, loving her, paying attention to the way her body moved under his, the flex of her body as he drove her closer. She clutched his shoulders and pulled on the scratches she’d dug into his back earlier, made his sweat sting.</p><p>Worth it. Every moment. The nag of discomfort at his back made him focus, helped him stay in control.</p><p>She moaned and came around his cock in a languid and fluttering roll of her hips. He kept rocking forward, dragging it out to its infinite depths, stretching her orgasm all through her body.</p><p>She was silent then, silent and moving in time with him, her muscles clenching and releasing around his cock. It was a wave she rode, they rode together, and when it was done, when the water receded, she was clinging to him and holding him close.</p><p>He stayed where he was over her, practically crushing her as she drew her knees up at his flanks. He worked his arm under her neck and turned his mouth into the sweat-damp skin there, tasting her.</p><p>She still clung to him, vibrating slightly with the leftover tension of her orgasm. He shifted to prop himself up on an elbow and skimmed his free hand down her side, gripped her thigh at his hip.</p><p>“You’re beautiful, you know,” he murmured. He kissed her mouth and then her lips separately, the corners where he often got a glimpse of her true feelings—curled or twisted, crooked or turned. “Simply beautiful. Sometimes it hurts to look at you, Kate.”</p><p>She turned her head into him, her nose nudging his, and he kissed her again. She seemed willing to hear him, willing to believe, and so he pressed his advantage. He wanted to leave her with something of himself that would last, that would remind her of this moment and how easily she could believe him, but teeth marks and bruises didn’t seem enough anymore.</p><p>“When I was nine,” he murmured, beginning a slow withdrawal from her heat, “I saw this movie I loved. Had to sneak out.”</p><p>He paused and trembled there, only the last few inches of his cock inside her, and then he sank down hard again. She gave a soft little gasp and her neck arched. Gorgeous.</p><p>“He never knew I went. It was the Superman movie. Did you ever see that old one? 1978.”</p><p>“Yeah,” she whispered. Her eyes were open he thought; he could feel her lashes at his cheek. Her body rose to meet his rhythm, slow and purposeful. So intense he struggled to regain his train of thought.</p><p>Superman. He felt like one with her. “I wasn’t allowed to watch movies, to waste my time. I schemed for months.” He touched his lips to her ear and sucked lightly, thrust his hips until he bottomed out inside her. Kate moaned, something so damn arousing about driving her wild like this. “When mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent falls so hard in love with her, Lois Lane, and she can’t even see him... it felt like the whole truth of the world was revealed to me.”</p><p>Kate gripped the back of his neck and arched into him, forced a frantic rhythm. He went with it, letting her, enjoying the sounds of them, her grunts and gasps and their bodies meeting.</p><p>And then he pinned her down again and went back to the agony of a slow fuck.</p><p>He wanted her to feel it too, the ache he’d first felt in a dark theatre where he wasn’t supposed to be, watching Clark be struck dumb by Lois, knowing it wasn’t supposed to be his life, it wasn’t the life of the spy. But wanting it anyway. Wanting.</p><p>“Rick,” she called out, trying to hurry him. Writhing under him.</p><p>“And then while Superman is off saving the world,” he began, sliding hard and deep inside her.</p><p>She moaned and began to tremble, a great and terrible orgasm approaching her just that quickly. He kept drawing it out, making his moment last.</p><p>“While Superman is honoring his word—the only thing really that anyone can trust about a man in disguise, his word—he saves the city from a nuclear missile. But he leaves Lois unprotected.”</p><p>“She dies,” Kate growled, cutting into him. “Aftershocks from the missiles hitting the fault line and causing earthquakes. A stupid plot. The damn earth opened up and her car fell in. It’s ridic—”</p><p>“She dies,” he mourned, thrusting inside her again. Kate arched and whimpered, trying to force him back into her, harder, faster, a pleading silence, but he kept it slow. “She dies and he finds her crushed in her car, and it destroys him.”</p><p>She whined, dug her nails into his back. “I’m so close.” A hot breath at his mouth. “Damn you.”</p><p>“He stops the whole world for her,” he whispered into her ear. Withdrew just enough to slam inside her again. “He reverses time,” -she whimped- “rewinds the globe to save her, Kate.” She was dragging him back to her by the hips. “He will always move heaven and earth for her. Do the impossible for her.”</p><p>She cried out on a fierce orgasm, that hot tight clutch at his cock, rigid beneath him. Time seemed to stop. Her eyes, wide and dark, stared up at him as it swept over her. He was so deep inside her body that their skins were fused, their breaths one. She seemed astonished by the intensity of her pleasure, and it crackled in the air around them.</p><p>He couldn’t hold on any longer. Three swift thrusts and that aching need erupted, spilled over into her body. He collapsed on top of her, wiped out, messy, disoriented.</p><p>All he’d done was tell her a story. A pretty story laden with symbolism. Later when he couldn’t be here, maybe something of him would remain in those words, even if only the impression of time stopping for them.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He called her when he got to DC, couldn't help himself, but he used a pay phone at a kiosk near the Capitol building, knowing that public landmarks were the worst places to trace a call. Beckett answered with a clipped tone and he cradled the phone between his ear and shoulder, leaned against the glass and metal of the booth.</p><p>"Hey, it's me."</p><p>"It's—oh. Hey, you." There was a smile in her voice that he could imagine so clearly. "Why are you calling me?"</p><p>"Let you know I'm here," he said, feeling stupid now. "Safe flight. Ah, whatever. Never mind. I've got my debrief meeting, but I'm early."</p><p>"You sound scared."</p><p>"No," he huffed, closing his eyes.</p><p>"Yeah, you are," she said over the line. Her tone held no sympathy. Of course not, he'd called her at seven in the morning while she was trying to get to work. "You're afraid of him."</p><p>"I just don't relish it," he said back. Too long on the phone now, too many details giving him away: a meeting soon, a flight in, a boss that came on strong, a love he couldn't seem to strangle. Shit. Bad idea. "I'll let you go. You're headed out."</p><p>"Mm-hm," she murmured. He'd cautioned her before about what they said on open lines; she'd been all too adept at picking up his methods. Whenever he had managed to call her from Ireland, she was always tight-lipped, held-back.</p><p>He'd told her to be, of course, but it was disheartening when he was in love with her, and missing her, and afraid he was doing damage to her just by leaving.</p><p>"Hey, I wanted to say—"</p><p>"I really have to go," she cut in. "Subway. I'll lose the call." She hung up on him just like that.</p><p>Castle hung up and sank back against the phone booth, scrubbed his face with both hands.</p><p>Shit, she was right. He was afraid of his father.</p><p>-----</p><p>He'd had a plan, a strategy all worked out. He'd talked to Kate last night about it a little, how his father dictated his life, how the CIA usually assigned people, what a mission fuck-up might mean for him. Kate hadn't been entirely enthusiastic about the conversation, but she'd at least listened. He'd been hoping for a clear sign from her, something one way or another, but to his way of thinking, the reticence and reluctance were pretty damn strong indicators that Kate already felt too much for him. So much for him that she had to lash herself to the mast in order to ignore the siren song of their relationship.</p><p>Most might be put off by Kate Beckett, but not him. He was twisted up enough to consider reticence and reluctance shining beacons of hope and encouragement, and he was fucked up enough to like it.</p><p>But when he got to the secure location, his plan—the vague notion of somehow working around his father—wasn't even needed.</p><p>Before going into the meeting, his father warned him that he was being accused of sabotaging his end goal with dangerous and seditious thoughts, and that if this was truly the case, he'd be put on a restrictive and mandatory watch pending further evaluation.</p><p>An evaluation that would take place over a three-month probationary period in DC.</p><p>In DC.</p><p>Never in a million years had Castle expected to be able to remain in the States. Half of him was irritated that he was being yanked back home when all he'd ever wanted was the freedom of overseas missions. (But what freedom had that been at all? More of the same: his father yanking him around, telling him how to run his mission, dictating the terms of his legends.) The rest of him was just so damn grateful to be that much closer to her, to Kate, to what he was trying to build and protect and nurture, that he didn’t give a fuck what it did to his career.</p><p>Fuck that. Nurture? He wasn't nurturing. No one had taught him how to be good for someone else, only how to subvert. How to destroy, how to do damage, wreak havoc. He wanted to be close because he was doing damage to her, he was hurting her, simply by leaving. He’d never done more damage in his absence than his presence.</p><p>She was the only one to ever need him.</p><p>So of course Castle used the debrief to let his 'seditious thoughts' leak out into the minds of every man and woman on that panel. He was careful about it, never outright saying he thought the Irish Nationalists were being unfairly persecuted, but he injected a little human feeling into his report. His interactions held warmth instead of rainy cold, and he recalled Mikey and the others to the team as if he regretted their passing. He even mentioned the damn dog a few times (thought not, of course, that he had taken the wolf home).</p><p>It had happened once before in Ireland; Castle had been swayed by Colleen and her loud laugh and the way she'd seemed separate from that whole life. No one had told him, no one had warned him that she was thick as thieves with Foley. He hadn't seen it coming. Not until she'd put together his ulterior motive and tried to slit his throat in a lake beside her brother's farm.</p><p>Not until after she'd murdered a boy who'd been running messages for him.</p><p>It had happened before, and maybe that was why his father had been so uptight and controlling about this mission, checking up on him. It'd been a test.</p><p>And he let them believe he'd failed.</p><p>He had failed.</p><p>He'd fallen in love with Kate Beckett and he couldn't keep leaving her with nothing. That was a failure as a spy who’d been trained to leave no trace behind.</p><p>His father made noises as if he was displeased, but he seemed—in private—to be quite content with the outcome. As if he'd been proven right. When Castle reported to his father in his office, John Black's arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes narrowed into that squint that said he'd brook no argument.</p><p>"You're grounded for three months," Black said. He was standing just behind his desk and he inclined his chin towards the chair.</p><p>Castle sat. Now that he was two inches taller than his father, he always had to sit for these meetings. He wasn't stupid—he knew the psychological games at play here—but that didn't mean it didn't work.</p><p>"Yes, sir," he answered.</p><p>"I've arranged it so you'll work under me."</p><p>Of course. "Yes, sir."</p><p>"We're going to get your head on straight, son. And then you can go back out again."</p><p>"Three months," he said, grimacing. He gripped the arms of the chair. It did irritate him; it wasn't a show. That they thought him weak, giving way. That they'd seen decent human emotion as a cause for concern.</p><p>Fuck, he wasn't a machine. The fucking dog had saved his damn life.</p><p>"You know the rules," his father said lightly. "You can stay at the barracks on—"</p><p>"I've got a place," he said, dismissing it. He let his tone be disgusted, distracted, as if he was thinking only of being stateside for three months.</p><p>"You have a place," his father repeated carefully.</p><p>Castle lifted his head and glanced at his father, registered the calculations going on behind that mask of indifference. Inside, in his stupid and rabbit heart, Castle froze like prey being scented by the predator.</p><p>Fuck this. No. No more. He wasn't some damn rabbit, his father was no wolf. "I'm sure you already know all about it," Castle muttered, lifting a hand and waving it off. "That place in New York. I found your damn cameras."</p><p>"Ah."</p><p>"I told you I don't need to be monitored," he said. "And I like New York. It's anonymous and busy. No one cares if I'm up at two in the morning, prowling around."</p><p>"Prowling around. Well, your nocturnal habits have always been—yes, well, be thankful you don't require as much sleep as the rest of us." His father's mood was mercurial and just like that, Black was the aloof older gentleman, patting him on the head. “Which won’t stay if you don’t keep up with the regimen, Richard.” A familiar, stern rebuke, a father tsking his son. “You skipped out on the reconditioning.”</p><p>He shrugged. “I got a medical in Dublin.”</p><p>His father looked ready to contradict him, as if only his precious medical plan was good enough for his son, but he didn’t say it. He merely looked away. "New York, hm."</p><p>"DC is too formal, too proper and clean. You know I'd never blend well here. And, come on, in these halls? I'd just be your son. Damn nepotism."</p><p>"You've made your own way," his father said. "No need for that."</p><p>"I know that. You know that. But they don't."</p><p>"New York," his father said, evidently mulling it over. As if Black could tell Castle where he’d be for the next three months.</p><p>Well. He usually did, didn’t he? And Castle had always obeyed.</p><p>"I like that apartment. It's wiped clean. I've yanked out all your cameras, I know, but with me being forced stateside, surely you'll see me enough?" He gave it an ironic twist of his lips and his father narrowed his eyes.</p><p>Too much; it was too much. Fuck, he'd overplayed it. Shit, he was sunk. His father was going to—</p><p>"You have a girl in New York," his father said.</p><p>His face went blank. "A girl—oh. Yeah. On the regular."</p><p>"You know the rules."</p><p>"She's extra-curricular," he said. He willed his voice not to crack. He could not—the last thing Beckett needed was his father looking into her life. "She's a cop—so it's—you know."</p><p>He let the kinky hang there, let it out because it was the least true part of all of it, but it was also the thing that his father might respect and avoid. He was a machine right? He was the CIA's machine. And machines needed to be serviced.</p><p>"Well," his father continued. "You file your incident reports and we'll see how it goes."</p><p>"Sure," he said, keeping his body language neutral. He shifted subjects as if they were related, as if the next thing was at all why he was asking for New York. "They gave me homework—the debrief team—it's a good mental exercise."</p><p>Discipline. He was playing it off as discipline. His father always rose to that bait.</p><p>"Very well, Richard. I'll issue you a clearance card for the Office out of New York, let you do your 'homework' from there. Three months is nothing. It'll pass quickly."</p><p>He was afraid of that.</p><p>-----</p><p>He had New York. Three months in New York.</p><p>But first he had to get through the reconditioning. He had to focus.</p><p>He pushed her out of his mind completely and he worked like a man who'd been rebuked and yanked from his plum assignment to sit at a desk and run field ops from a phone. He worked like a man obsessed—but not with Kate Beckett.</p><p>First, he took the injection and the pills right in the lab with his father standing over him. Dr King, one of the panel of therapists and shrinks and docs who always evaluated his status, came by and struck up a conversation, friendly as always, and his father left him there to start the program.</p><p>But King's manner changed the moment Black exited the lab, and the man’s hand came out to grip Castle's arm. "Richard, I was one of the men behind the mirror in your debrief. I just wanted to say—"</p><p>"Yeah, I know," he sighed. "It was just a damn dog."</p><p>King withdrew his hand and frowned. "Actually. That gave me—joy for you."</p><p>"Joy?" he said, startled by the man's confession. "Why? What—"</p><p>"No, I must have been... wrong. I don't see it now."</p><p>"You don't see joy for me? What is this, some kind of fortune telling shit—"</p><p>"No, no. I was merely expressing some misplaced sympathy. I'm sure you're fine." Dr King moved as if struck, turning for the door.</p><p>Something made Castle call out. Something forced its way out of his mouth. "Dr King."</p><p>The older man stood there a moment, waiting, a look on his face like he expected nothing good to come form this, and Castle took a sharp breath in.</p><p>"I kept the dog," he whispered.</p><p>Dr King turned quickly and stared at him. In the next instant he was snapping his head back to the doorway as if to check, and then he came forward. "You did. You did. Oh, that's—good. That's very good, Richard."</p><p>"I shouldn't have kept the dog," he confessed. None of this. He should never have followed that girl on the subway and forced himself into her apartment and—</p><p>"Well, I think that instinct is a good one. For preservation of a life. That's a good instinct to have, Richard. But are you, well, are you able to keep the dog? For instance, while you're here, does the dog have food, shelter, can he go to the bathroom?"</p><p>"Oh, right." Castle's shoulders slumped. He had opened his mouth and now he had to figure out how to explain this one. "The dog's fine. He's..."</p><p>"Your girl in New York," King finished. "I thought so."</p><p>Shit. Shit, holy shit. Was it that obvious? Had he given the whole fucking thing away to his father?</p><p>"You're fine, Richard," Dr King said quickly, holding up both hands. "Nothing will come of it. He won't hear it from me. I just put a few things together."</p><p>"Put it together," he croaked. Shit. Kate.</p><p> </p><p>"The dog, the budding emotions you've handled so cleanly this time. I figured it out, I had hope, but there’s no way he saw it. And I won't tell a soul."</p><p>"But you're only—you've only been on the team since 2002. You don't even—if you figured it out, someone else will too."</p><p>"No," King said, shaking his head. "I figured it out because I was looking for it. I was hoping to find it in you. I'm not sure what your father has told you of his program, but there are some who don't—well, I'll leave that for another day. We’re not quite there yet. Suffice it to say, Richard, these are good signs from you. I'd been worried."</p><p>"How am I going to keep it from him?" he groaned. He made a fist of his hand and thumped his forehead. Shit, he had to think. Dr King knew about Kate. King. Who the fuck even was King? His father—if his father knew he'd taken that damn dog home to her—</p><p>"We'll do it together," King said firmly. "Listen to me, Richard. It's a basic human need. I wouldn't dare keep it from you. Keep you from her."</p><p>"But someone else will find out,” he moaned. “If you found me out so easily—"</p><p>"I'll help you. Come to me before your evaluations, before any meeting with him. I've been in this business as a behavioral analyst and psychologist, as a criminal profiler, for longer than you know. Together we can do this. I'll help you run this; I'll be your inside man."</p><p>Castle stared at the nondescript, plain man before him. "Why would you do that?"</p><p>"Because it's right."</p><p>He blinked and sank back against the lab table. Already his blood was sluggish from the regimen cocktail, his need to sleep it off pushing at him. He had a cot in here at the back and he was about to drop, but King's solid, steady eyes were holding him up. Keeping him there.</p><p>"Eastman knows," he said finally.</p><p>"I thought someone," King murmured. "All right. Very good. Don't tell me her name—I won't be able to say it. I'll ask you about the dog from time to time, and as distasteful as the substitution is, that will be the code."</p><p>Kate was the dog.</p><p>"Yes, sir," he croaked. "Actually. No, sir. I couldn't have that get back to him. Not the dog. Ask—instead the bear. The bear. That—that works."</p><p>"The bear. All right. And Eastman knows. Very good. These are good signs, Richard. Now, to ease everyone's minds, I suggest that you do exceedingly well on your performance review tomorrow."</p><p>"The training courses?" he said, swaying now. The drugs were dragging him under.</p><p>"Exceedingly well, Richard. With the drive of a man thwarted in his life's goals. Perhaps break a few personal bests, no matter how... different those tests might appear in the light of newfound relationships."</p><p>He had no fucking idea what that meant, but for Kate, he could break every last one of his records.</p><p>------</p><p>He couldn't call her from the office; he was supposed to be a man driven, a man on a crusade to win back his good name.</p><p>Castle got up after sleeping for eighteen hours straight and he felt good. He felt a lot better, actually, and he had to admit that the bruises had been bothering him. Headaches maybe too. Hard to tell now that everything had cleared up. Bruises were gone, body was sound.</p><p>He headed out for the performance review.</p><p>He ran through the obstacle course on the military base in his fastest time. Instead of hopping in the transport jeep with the rest of them, he ran the eighteen miles back to headquarters and then he started the spatial puzzles. He had beaten those long ago, and he usually half-assed his way through them as if to prove a point—that he could beat them with his eyes closed. But now he focused.</p><p>He had a test when he went back to the lab and grabbed something from the fridge. His father had delivered it, but as usual hadn't stuck around to see Castle perform it. The test was laid out over the lab's work table.</p><p>Mice. In a maze.</p><p>He was required to train them to run the maze and to stop at nothing to get to the end. Whatever means necessary.</p><p>He'd done this test before. Twice before. The way to win was to build a strong behavior in the mouse with intermittent cheese-paste reward—and then drive the mouse right over the hot plate in the center. The plate was hooked up to a low current. Strong enough to make his own bones tingle with it, strong enough to cause severe pain in the mouse.</p><p>It was a test in more ways than one.</p><p>What had King said to him yesterday—the tests might appear different?</p><p>Fuck, before the damn dog, before Kate, he'd never seen this test for what it was.</p><p>Could Richard Castle do what was necessary to get the job done?</p><p>He had to. Had to. It was only a fucking mouse.</p><p>This was about Kate.</p><p>He could do what was necessary. He would fucking perform.</p><p>He set up the discrete trial system in the mouse's cage and he started to work building the strongest possible behavior in the mice. They had to run across the current no matter what. Run forward even if you're dying of pain.</p><p>Just keep fucking running.</p><p>-----</p><p>He didn't make it back to New York until Monday afternoon. There was one more test that left a bad taste in his mouth, but he saw it too for what it was, and he was faintly sick he’d never seen it before. Never understood how his father was programming him. He put it out of his mind and excelled, because it would get him back to Kate.</p><p>He went through an underwater scuba training course and then his father recruited him to teach a masters class on advanced Krav Maga. Finally, he had one more round of regimen before he'd gone back.</p><p>Punishment, he was certain, for skipping it back in Ireland.</p><p>He crashed at the lab for five hours, but he made himself get up and catch the military cargo plane back to New York. He’d had bizarre dreams about electric shocks and mice stealing cheese, and he wanted it out of his head. He rubbed his hands over his face on the cargo plane, trying to wake up, pull himself out of the regimen-coma. He couldn't even call her because his responses were so slow—for him—that he was afraid of making a mistake, leading someone back to her.</p><p>When he finally got to her place, it was the middle of the day and she was at work. Instead of repeating his stupidity the morning he'd arrived in DC, Castle merely shed his clothes on his way to her bedroom and fell into her bed.</p><p>He loved this mattress. It was taut and firm; he could melt over it.</p><p>He was so tired. He'd just sleep and text her when the regimen wore off. Besides, she'd made it pretty clear that calling her at work wasn't cool.</p><p>Oh, fuck. He forgot to contact the Plaza Hotel about her birthday on Wednesday.</p><p>Later. Do it later. Sleep for now.</p><p>-----</p><p>First thing he knew was her voice and then the darkness of the room.</p><p>"Kate," he mumbled, face pressed into her pillow. He couldn't yet get his arms to move, his body to respond. Still drugged feeling. Always worse when he tore himself out of REM sleep and had to function before the full cycle of the regimen could take effect.</p><p>"Rick," she murmured. She was crouched beside the bed, her fingers tracing cool patterns over his bare back, down his spine. "You're here."</p><p>"Mm," he sighed. He needed maybe two more hours. Just two. He really couldn't quite get himself together. He needed a couple hours.</p><p>"Okay, okay, you can sleep," she whispered. "You're allowed to sleep. I've... actually never seen you sleep. So it's comforting to know you're human."</p><p>He cracked an eyelid but she wasn't exactly messing with him. Her face came close to him and her kiss was cool along his lips. It was November. Had it been raining when he came in? He thought it was raining now, the sound of water lulling. Her birthday in two days.</p><p>"Your bruises are gone," she was murmuring. Her fingers trailed along his spine. "We no longer match."</p><p>Matched. What did she-</p><p>"No, no, sleep. Don't move. I'm just surprised to find you here. Good—good surprise."</p><p>"Stay," he garbled, blinking hard but unable to keep his eyes open. "Don't leave. Just tired."</p><p>He vaguely felt her pause, hovering beside him, and then she was sliding into bed with him. Her clothes were damp, smelling of earth and cold, but her body laid against his side and pulled warmth from him, evening out her chilled skin. He dragged his arm up and tangled his hand in hers, felt himself falling down again.</p><p>"Sleep, Rick. You need it. You have a lot to catch up on."</p><p>What had he missed?</p><p>Her lips brushed his cheek and then he felt her turning.</p><p>"No, Cujo. Off the bed. Off. Let him sleep."</p><p>He was gone.</p><p>-----</p><p>“Hey, you’re alive.”</p><p>He blinked and lifted his hand, rubbed it down his face. “Sorry.”</p><p>“No, you’re fine.”</p><p>“Time’s it?” he rasped, eyelids slipping shut again.</p><p>“About five.”</p><p>He’d slept four hours. He still felt funny. He could use another four. “I’m still wiped,” he murmured. “Sorry.”</p><p>“Stop apologizing,” she murmured. He realized he was lying in her lap, her fingers running through his hair. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”</p><p>“Should be up,” he muttered. It was so nice like this, so nice with her fingers brushing his forehead and lightly scratching his scalp. If he weren’t so wiped, he’d drag her under him and make her feel nice too.</p><p>“I’ve never seen you sleep so long.”</p><p>“The program,” he sighed. “Takes a while.”</p><p>“The program?”</p><p>“Yeah. Everything. The training and diet and supplements and injections and skills tests and everything. Gotta re-qualify every so often. Had back to back this weekend. Never done that before. Shots make me...”</p><p>“I’ve seen you take vitamins. Or herbal supplements. There are shots too?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he drawled. “I just haven’t been taking them. Stopped taking them cause they make me crash for four hours.”</p><p>“Mm. Because you’ve been coming to me?”</p><p>“Yeah.” No. He’d said something wrong.</p><p>“Castle,” she warned. “Don’t skip necessary medical attention just because you don’t want to sleep on me for four hours. I can handle it.”</p><p>Whoops. “Okay.”</p><p>“Don’t do that again.”</p><p>“Okay.” He swallowed roughly. “Should get up. It’s your birthday week.”</p><p>She paused, fingers caught at the back of his skull. “Who told you that?”</p><p>“You told me.”</p><p>“No, that it’s—birthday week.”</p><p>“Oh, your dad. He said it. Birthday week. Never had a birthday week,” he grinned, pressing his face into her lap and taking a deep breath and out again. “Course don’t celebrate my birthday so that’s not anything. You like special things on your birthday. I know what you like.”</p><p>Her fingers curled at his nape. “Never?”</p><p>“Never?” he echoed, pulling his eyes open to stare at the soft golden glow of her bedroom.</p><p>“You’ve never celebrated your birthday?”</p><p>“Naw.”</p><p>“Rick... when is your birthday? When was it?”</p><p>“Um, April. The first. I think that’s right.”</p><p>“Oh,” she murmured. “I—missed your birthday.”</p><p>“No, you didn’t.” He tightened his arms around her waist and hugged her hard, like stretching, like a yawn. “Didn’t miss anything. I was here.”</p><p>“You were here April 1st?”</p><p>“Mmm, good birthday.”</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me?” she murmured.</p><p>“Tell you what?” He frowned and rolled his head towards her, confused by the lamp in the bedroom, the light pooling around her. “Happy birthday? But it’s Wednesday, right?”</p><p>She opened her mouth, sighed, shut it again. Her finger came down and traced over his nose, made his heart flip, unsettled. “My dad’s been talking to you about my birthday?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he sighed. It was hard keeping his eyes open when she was touching him like this. “I’m gonna fall asleep. I should be up.”</p><p>“No, baby. You can sleep.”</p><p>“Your birthday week.”</p><p>“This is what I want for my birthday, right here,” she said softly. Her body bent around his and her lips touched his forehead. “This is all I want. So sleep.”</p><p>Yeah, he needed maybe four more hours. That’s all.</p><p>“I know. You said. Sleep, Rick. It’ll still be birthday week when you wake.”</p><p>-----</p><p>Cold. Wet.</p><p>He woke with a jerk and startled up, on his feet, alert.</p><p>Kate was laughing hard, leaning against the headboard, and the dog was standing on the bed with his tongue hanging out. Probably laughing at him too.</p><p>“What?” he scraped out, his heart pounding.</p><p>“Oh, baby. The dog. The dog was licking you and you jerked awake. Wow.”</p><p>“The dog,” he repeated, staring at the thing.</p><p>“Yeah, the dog. You just came instantly awake. I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”</p><p>“I’m not tired any more,” he said, blinking as his heart began to slow.</p><p>“Guess not.”</p><p>“I... I’m at a loss.”</p><p>She laughed again and got out of the bed, unfolding those long legs. She’d changed out of her uniform and was wearing only an oversized shirt, flashing bare skin at him and the gorgeous, sharp angles of her knees.</p><p>He stepped into her and tucked his fingers under her shirt, brushed the back of her thighs as he nudged her into him. She stood still and waited on him, and he slid his palms up until he cupped her ass. “God, I want you.”</p><p>She grinned and laid her cheek against his shoulder. He always forgot how tall she was until they were like this, chest to chest, and she fit so well into him.</p><p>He brushed his lips to her cheek and slid a finger into the leg of her panties, sliding along her skin. She shivered and wrapped an arm around his neck.</p><p>“Are we doing dinner?”</p><p>“Hmm, what time is it?”</p><p>“Almost eight.”</p><p>She’d waited for him. She’d gotten home by four, so that meant she’d had early shift, off at three, and she had to have been starving. But she’d waited for him. He wanted to grin like an idiot at her, but instead he buried his smile into her hair and snapped her panties against her skin.</p><p>She yelped and he laughed. “Yeah. We’re doing dinner. Want me to make something or should we go out?”</p><p>“Do I have things to make?”</p><p>He laughed again. “No, I guess not. Let’s go to Remy’s. I want fries. I’m ravenous.”</p><p>“All that training,” she murmured, stepping away from him. “Let me change, and I’ll be ready.”</p><p> </p><p>“Aw, too bad. I thought you might go out like that. Sexy as hell.”</p><p>She shoved him as she turned to go, but of course it didn’t shift him an inch, and she stumbled back, rebounding off his chest, laughing. “Whoa. Baby. You’re rock hard.”</p><p>He flashed her a leer. “Not yet, but I certainly can be.”</p><p>She eyed him, a long and lust-filled look, and then she stripped her shirt off over her head. His mouth went dry, but she touched a finger to his lips and shook her head. “After dinner. Hold you to it.”</p><p>When she turned for the closet, he saw a daisy chain of bruises down her back, livid and purple and spread across her spine.</p><p>He stood there stunned.</p><p>That’s what she’d meant by we no longer match.</p><p>Had he put those bruises on her?</p><p>-----</p><p>She had dressed up for dinner. Not dressy, but not jeans.</p><p>All he had were jeans but he’d felt proud with his hand in hers as they headed inside the diner/pub they loved to frequent. She was in low-rise black pants that hugged her ass, bootcut to set off the black heels she wore. Her shirt was soft green, what he might have once said camouflage green, and it was a complicated bodice of ribbon laces that tied across her chest and made his eyes cling to her cleavage every time.</p><p>She was wearing her black leather jacket, the motorcycle jacket with its wide lapels and zippers, and he wanted very badly to peel back that leather, unknot those laces, and sink his teeth into her bare skin.</p><p>He was pretty sure the top was strapless. His brain was telling him it was strapless, that it was her breasts alone holding it up, tightly laced into that bodice. His brain? No. Wrong body part. His cock.</p><p>His cock was telling him he could unwrap her with one tug of those laces.</p><p>“Here’s good,” she said, nudging him towards the booth.</p><p>He was in jeans and a polo shirt, feeling preppy and disheveled, no jacket in the November mild weather, and she looked so fucking hot he could barely follow the conversation.</p><p>“How often do you have to do that?” she said, sinking into the booth.</p><p>He sat opposite her automatically—he wanted to stare at her all night—and tried to recall what they were talking about.</p><p>“Rick?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. I’m here. Here.”</p><p>She laughed softly and lifted an eyebrow at him, which he caught in his peripheral vision, and he jerked his gaze back up to her face.</p><p>“My bad,” he said. “I have more respect for you than it appears.”</p><p>“Oh, no,” she said, shaking her head. “We don’t want that. Why do you think I wore this?”</p><p>“To make me crazy?”</p><p>She smiled slowly, dazzling and wicked, and his cock actually pulsed in response. Fuck, she was going to make him hard. She was trying to make him hard.</p><p>“Can I take your orders?”</p><p>He snapped his attention to the waitress standing at their table and he mechanically ordered his burger, fries, milkshake—the usual deal. Kate got the grilled chicken salad, but she asked for a plate of sweet potato fries as well. He approved.</p><p>“The regimen,” he said, closing his eyes to concentrate. “I’ve been on it my whole life. Conditioning, basically, for a life in the services.”</p><p>“But the shots. They knock you out like that?”</p><p>He nodded and risked opening his eyes. All the creamy skin and the heave of her breasts as she breathed, leaning in against the table. She had taken off the jacket, and there were sleeves, but it didn’t even matter because they were barely even there, just silky army-green ribbon and her breasts and the shine of the city lights through the window highlighting it all.</p><p>“I really like that shirt,” he croaked.</p><p>Kate was laughing at him. He didn’t even care. It’d been too long away from her this last time and his cock was going to have a mind of its own for a while. At least until he got some regular action.</p><p>Three months in New York. He hadn’t even told her yet.</p><p>He opened his mouth to blurt it out, but something checked him.</p><p>Her birthday. Her birthday in two days and he could surprise her—it could be his gift.</p><p>I won’t have to leave.</p><p>She tilted her head. “What?”</p><p>“Just—really like that shirt. On you. With you in it. Constrained like that.”</p><p>She smirked. “Constrained? I see.”</p><p>He took in a quick breath and she only smiled wider at him.</p><p>“It’s okay, stare all you like, baby.”</p><p>He clenched his hands into fists; he could do this. Have an evening with her where it wasn’t all about fucking her as soon as possible. He could have actual conversation, be a gentleman.</p><p>“The shots,” he started. “They knock me flat for about four hours. But I had to take them back-to-back this weekend. I didn’t wait for medical back in Ireland, after it happened, and my father wanted me to go ahead and make it up.”</p><p>“What’s in it? Like some kind of weight-lifting cocktail?”</p><p>He shrugged. “I don’t know. Supplements and stuff. There’s a whole program for it. He tried it out in the army a couple times, but I guess it doesn’t really work so hot with people who are new to it. But since I’ve had it all my life, I’m better adapted. I heard someone say it was in my blood. So I guess something to do with that.”</p><p>She was frowning at him, deep lines between her eyebrows. “You don’t know what’s in it?”</p><p>“No. You know what it’s in tylenol? Or the pills they give you for birth control?”</p><p>She huffed. “Well, yes. I do.”</p><p>“Yeah, but I mean, can you tell me what that stuff does exactly?”</p><p>She opened her mouth and then closed it again.</p><p>“See? Same deal. It’s a mix of vitamins and minerals and supplements that—when they work together—help keep me in top shape. So, sure, weightlifting cocktail works, though I don’t do a lot of weights. Not supposed to stand out from the crowd when you’re a spy.”</p><p>He winked at her but she looked troubled by him. She shook her head and waved it off. “Never mind. It’s your life. Look, you mentioned something about a birthday week? We don’t do that really. That was—you know, kid stuff. I don’t even really celebrate my birthday. Since my mom died.”</p><p>“Okay,” he said easily. “But I can take you out for dessert, right? Something special.”</p><p> </p><p>She looked distinctly uncomfortable with that idea.</p><p>“I won’t infringe—you and your dad can do dinner alone, Kate, just your family. I get it. I figure that’s what most people do, right? Just reserve dessert for me. It was even your dad’s idea.”</p><p>“My dad’s... what was my dad’s idea?” she asked, sitting up straighter in the booth.</p><p>“Dessert,” he said, grinning back at her. “So you’ll save me—”</p><p>“I’m not having dinner with my father.”</p><p>He was surprised. “No? But... I thought he—it sounded like he was expecting it.”</p><p>“My dad and I don’t celebrate holidays.”</p><p>“Yeah, same here,” he shrugged. “But your birthday is different. I’m pretty sure your dad mentioned to me that you—”</p><p>“No,” she said quickly. “Castle. We’re not having dinner.”</p><p>“Maybe you should ask him. Because I’m pretty sure—”</p><p> </p><p>“Richard,” she snapped. “Drop it, okay?”</p><p>He closed his mouth and sat back against the booth. He glanced away from her, wondering what that was about—was it punishment for the drinking?—and their orders arrived at that moment, breaking the strange, awkward silence.</p><p>When they had tucked into fries and licked salt from their fingers, managed a few bites of salad or burger, Kate finally said something.</p><p>“So you can have dessert,” she murmured across the table. “And dinner, if you like.”</p><p>He lifted his eyes to her, hopeful. “Yeah? I can make you something.”</p><p>“No, you don’t have to—”</p><p>“Please? I don’t—we never do holidays either. Birthdays or Christmas or whatever. I’d like to make dinner for us.”</p><p>“Both of us,” she said softly. “Okay? We’ll celebrate your birthday then too, since I missed it.”</p><p>“You were there,” he insisted. “You were definitely there.”</p><p>“We can do something... fun. After dinner.”</p><p>“After dessert,” he reminded her. At the Plaza, though she didn’t know that part.</p><p>She tilted her head and regarded him for a moment, as if she didn’t know what to do with him. “Right. After dessert, we’ll go back to my place and I can make it a happy birthday for both of us.”</p><p>He grinned, wondered if he could ask her to wear just that bodice-shirt thing so he could unlace her. Slowly. One ribbon at a time.</p><p>No. Bad idea. He’d lose patience and rip it off of her. He didn’t want to ruin it; she looked gorgeous and delectable in that shirt.</p><p>“Better stop imagining it,” she said quickly. “Or else I’m gonna have to drag you into Remy’s bathroom.”</p><p>He perked up. “What’s so bad about that?”</p><p>“It’s disgusting in there.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the subway ride back to her apartment, she stood close to him and kept her hands at his hips, hanging on to him as they swayed in the cramped car.</p><p>She turned her cheek into his and her words scattered at his ear. “I love the way you’ve been looking at me all night.”</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“Mmm.”</p><p>He was hard. Just that noise from her mouth and his cock was aching for her. He was so sunk.</p><p>“You can’t stop staring.”</p><p>“I tried to stop,” he whispered.</p><p>“I can see what you’re thinking, right in your eyes. The plan you think you’ll be able to put into effect the moment we get home.”</p><p>“The plan?”</p><p>“With this shirt. How you want to fuck me.”</p><p>He gasped and ducked his head into her neck, closing his eyes.</p><p>“Yeah, I know you do,” she hummed. Her hand spread at his back and her hips brushed his. “I want you to take it off me.”</p><p>“Does it—unlace?” he muttered.</p><p>“Not really. But you can.”</p><p>The car swung around a curve in the track and pushed him into her; her breasts pressed against him. Delicious and firm. “I can?”</p><p>“Mm-hmm.”</p><p>“Like an early birthday present.”</p><p>She laughed softly. “Just like that.”</p><p>The car was crowded—she had a popular line during the late hours when everyone was heading home—and he had her pressed back against the pole, his body blocking hers. “I really want to touch you.”</p><p>“So touch me.”</p><p>“I want to touch you where I shouldn’t.”</p><p>“Who says you shouldn’t?”</p><p>“It’s indecent,” he growled, closing his eyes.</p><p>“No one will notice,” she murmured. Her mouth ghosted his cheek for an instant and then she pulled back. He opened his eyes. She smiled. “With some distance, no one will even be able to tell.”</p><p>“I think they’ll notice my hand down your pants,” he hissed.</p><p>She lifted an eyebrow and slowly shrugged out of her leather jacket, offered it to him. “Will you hold this for me?”</p><p>He stared at her breasts a moment too long, took the jacket. It folded over his hands between them and then he realized.</p><p>A screen. She’d set up a screen.</p><p>Holy fuck, no. No, she didn’t seriously want him to finger her in the subway car, did she? A police officer could not be caught doing this.</p><p>Don’t get caught.</p><p>Castle stared at her and she only stared back in challenge, and so he did it.</p><p>He stepped in close with her leather jacket slung over his presumably clasped hands, and he found the button of her pants and popped it open. Her eyes burned into his, just the rocking of the subway, and he tried to calculate how many stops they had left to get this done.</p><p>“End of the line,” she murmured.</p><p>“What?” he rasped. He could feel the heat of her through the soft satin of her panties.</p><p>“We’ll stay till the end of the line. Get off there.”</p><p>“Get off there,” he echoed. He rubbed two fingers over her panties and found the damp place where she’d already gotten worked up. “Oh, yeah, love. You’ll definitely get off.”</p><p>“Lame,” she breathed. But her neck had that faint blush to it. “So lame.”</p><p>He slid his fingers sideways under the crotch of her panties, found her sex immediately. She closed her eyes and then flared them open again, her hips working a tight, hard little thrust towards him.</p><p>He hovered there, lightly touching her closed sex, the humid lips, the place where her clit had pushed out of its hood. She frowned at him, her unspoken command, touch me, Castle.</p><p>He pushed his fingers into her sex and hit the soaking wet heat of her arousal.</p><p>Kate leaned her head back against the pole and stared at him.</p><p>He stroked lightly along her sex, had to avoid looking at her, had to make himself act nonchalant. Like he didn’t have his fingers inside her pants, like he wasn’t fingering her perfect heat, like nothing at all was happening but the normal commute.</p><p>The subway swayed and his fingers slipped, wetting the crease at her thigh. She grunted and he came back, found her again, shifting on his feet to keep his balance, keep his place. His hips were close to hers, her back against the pole, but their upper bodies were far, as if they weren’t touching at all below.</p><p>He used two spread fingers to stroke around her clit, along her folds, short and jerky movements that were entirely not enough and yet so completely tantalizing. For both of them. She was amazing, leaning against the pole like nothing at all, her eyelids a little heavy, her lips parted, with that sex-fucked face that no one would know just looking at her.</p><p>No one but him.</p><p>She shifted as if uncrossing her legs and getting a better position, but it hid the lazy rock of her hips up into his hand. He worked his fingers in and out of her quickly, a shallow thrust inside, and she closed her eyes. Opened them. Her tongue touched her bottom lip.</p><p>More.</p><p>He jerked his eyes away from her, breathing shallowly and trying to disguise how worked up he was over this. She was a fucking cop and yet she was letting him finger her in public, in a crowded subway, only a jacket hiding the evidence.</p><p>The car pulled up to a station—he could barely even register where—and the doors hissed open, disgorged half the riders. More people got on, they had to shuffle around, he leaned in close to Kate and pinched her clit hard between his fingers.</p><p>She gasped something and stiffened; the woman in front of her turned around with an apology. “I’m so sorry, sorry.” The woman was trying to shift away, a flush of shame, and Kate turned sparkling, desperate eyes to him. Help.</p><p>“She stepped on your foot,” he told her.</p><p>“She did,” she agreed.</p><p>He scraped his fingernail over her clit and she pressed her lips together, half-lifting up on her already-high-heeled toes.</p><p>Her mouth twisted, eyebrows raised, and then her hand came swiftly to his elbow and squeezed.</p><p>She was coming.</p><p>Only two stops left to the end of the line and she was coming in this furious, tight little tremble.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle gripped her by the lapels of her leather jacket—she'd slid it back on when the train had screeched into the last stop in Manhattan. He wasn't sure he could let go of her, sexy and thrilling and unimaginably amazing Kate Beckett, but she untangled herself from him and dragged him off the subway.</p><p>It was quiet, but that could just be the strange discordance between the crowded green line and the sudden release into open space. The platform was busy with the tail end of the dinner rush, but he didn't think he'd ever gotten off here. "Where are we?"</p><p>"Bowling Green," she said. She was tugging him out across the concrete floor, her fingers wrapped around his thumb for some reason, and he lengthened his stride to match her pace. "I didn't want to cross into Brooklyn."</p><p>He followed her up the escalator and watched the way she threaded through a crowd, purposeful and confident. She knew how to maneuver, knew where to put her body, how to step; she never faltered.</p><p>When they came aboveground and exited onto street level, they had to pass right beside the station's entrance. Castle was so astonished he stopped in place. Kate didn't try to move him, and he stared up at the stone structure, the brilliant green framing the beauty of the old stone.</p><p>"Oh. Wow."</p><p>"Yeah," she said. She was nudging him out of the flow of traffic and off to one side, letting him look.</p><p>The old entrance was a monument to the history of the rapid transit rails, built of stone and brick and gleaming wooden doors. The cross above the stonework sign gave the whole thing the appearance of a mausoleum, a long-standing marker for the portal to the underworld.</p><p>"This city is beautiful," she murmured at his ear.</p><p>"I never knew this was here."</p><p>"The other entrance is ultra modern—a sweeping half arch. I love the dichotomy."</p><p>And he loved that word out of her mouth. Fucking hell. She couldn't be this beautiful. It wasn't fair. She couldn't dare him to touch her in the subway and then glow in the street lamps with all that hesitant pride. He cleared his throat and cupped the back of her neck, rubbed his thumb over her bottom lip to let her know he was coming.</p><p>She met his kiss softly, a brush of her nose against his, mouths barely touching.</p><p>When he let her go, she touched her forehead to his and hooked a finger in the back pocket of his jeans, tugging. "Come on. We'll walk through the park and then get back on the line."</p><p>He followed her of course. Where wouldn't he follow her?</p><p>-----</p><p>They walked through the round, green park under the yellow flare of light falling from the lamp posts. Most of the softness was gone, the moment had passed, but the night was quiet out here and allowed them some privacy, and he liked the way she seemed unable to find herself.</p><p>Like touching her in that subway car had scattered her, and then that moment of rare beauty outside the subway entrance had kept her from regaining her self-possession. And now that they were in this no-man's land of park space and lawn, she hadn't gotten the chance to transition back to Beckett, NYPD officer.</p><p>He liked finding her here, figuring her out. He liked that he knew these intimate things about her, not just how she felt around his fingers but how her mind worked and why she stopped talking and where she drifted to when she was tired or lonely or upset. He could even flip his hand a little and take her fingers with his in a half-grasp, not hand-holding but close enough for him, and she would allow it and even sometimes lean into him for a moment.</p><p>The park’s centerpiece was a circular fountain with autumnal flowers making an appearance in a ring around its base, the sound of leaping water drowning out the city. They took a single stroll around the fountain and then headed back out again.</p><p>Apparently, Kate had something to say, because that was when she chose to start. "There's a lot more going on with you than I thought."</p><p>He glanced over at her and she shrugged, chewing on her bottom lip. He decided to wait her out, and he was still waiting when they crossed through the pale wooden door and to the turnstiles. She swiped her card but he refused to be tracked—not after what had happened on base this weekend—and she waited for him on the other side.</p><p>He came through with a ticket he'd bought with cash and she sighed at him; she'd been in the flow of traffic, the narrow station with no room to move, and he'd probably only reinforced her earlier statement.</p><p>He had a lot going on.</p><p>It felt like a prelude to a break-up. Like the next words out of her mouth were going to be, I'm sorry but I just don't-</p><p>But she shook her head when he offered an apology. "Makes us even," she said suddenly.</p><p>He shot her a quick look, too surprised to know how to respond. She was taking his hand and guiding him back to the platform, evidently unable to elaborate.</p><p>It made them even?</p><p>Oh. What she brought to the table made his stuff a wash. He had shit in his life he couldn't explain and didn't even know how to incorporate into hers, and she did too. He had a job that pulled him away from her and she had ambitions and a life's quest, didn't she? Her mother's murder had twisted things up for her and he was the kind of guy who totally got that. And didn’t demand things she couldn’t or wouldn’t give.</p><p>"Yeah," he said, his smile spreading across his face. "Yeah, baby, it does. I like that."</p><p>"You do?" She had paused on the station platform before the yellow line, her hair waving from the slight breeze that came down the tunnel. "You like it."</p><p>"Remember when we met?" he said. He dared to reach out and catch the ends of her hair, a loose, soft strand. He tucked it behind her ear and curled his fingers there. "I had a week off between assignments. I had no idea what to do."</p><p>"You did me," she said, a little smirk across her face. She wasn't looking in his eyes though. She was afraid of what he'd say, of what it would mean.</p><p>"I did. Thoroughly. And vice versa, yeah?"</p><p>She shot him a little look, hot and triumphant, and he grinned back.</p><p>"Yeah," he said, relishing it. The memory of having her, her having him, even if—so far—it was only a right he could claim in her bed. That having. "But you've seen me. What do I know about the normal, boring world? What do I care for boring girls? I want you. I want a woman with work to her."</p><p>She sighed and turned her head away, like it was a death knell. Maybe it just confirmed her worst fears—that he wasn't leaving any time soon, that after a year of coming back to her at random inopportune times, he didn't plan on letting her go.</p><p>The train interrupted with a fierce wind and noise, a monster-machine coming to slide in at their feet. Kate didn't say anything else, just turned towards the doors and waited. When they were safely inside the belly of the beast, she guided him to a row of seats in the back and sank to the contoured plastic. He sat beside her and studied her weary face, the line in her forehead, and he realized she was happy.</p><p>She was afraid of it, but she was happy.</p><p>She liked him.</p><p>-----</p><p>It wasn't like they'd had a late night of it. It wasn't like he hadn't just spent hours sleeping while she laid in bed with him and—what had she done while he was unconscious?</p><p>But the moment they walked into her apartment, despite the fun they'd had in the subway, he looked at her and she looked at him, and he knew that wasn't what they'd be doing tonight. Well, they would, yeah—of course they would. But it was going to be different.</p><p>Tonight had already changed them. He didn't know if it was the fight they'd had before he had left, or if it was the one-sentence conversation she'd had with him in the park, but it was already different.</p><p>They weren't just fuck buddies, and even though they'd both known that on some level, tonight it seemed they'd accepted it. Kate had accepted it. She was with him on this, whatever it was, and she was—willing or unwilling—with him for the journey.</p><p>"I'll take the dog out," he said. She was hanging her leather jacket up in the closet and she half-turned, gave Cujo an apologetic glance.</p><p>"Thanks. He keeps getting forgotten."</p><p>"Shh," he cautioned, squatting down to cover the dog's ears. "Don't let him hear you. He'll be crushed."</p><p>She actually laughed, a sound startled out of her, and shook her head at him as she moved away. Her fingers came out to trail along his shoulder as he hunched over the dog waiting so patiently to go out. She knocked the back of her hand against Castle's cheek, like a thing, like a nudge of familiar tenderness, and then she handed him the leash.</p><p>He clipped it on Cujo's collar, stood up again. Before Castle could go back out the door, she had leaned in and brushed her mouth across his jaw, a little graze of her teeth. "I'll wait on you."</p><p>"Wait on me?"</p><p>She breathed in deeply, breasts expanding the ribbon of material, and the light bulb went on.</p><p>"Oh, oh please do. Please wait on me. I want to unwrap that."</p><p>She grinned and opened her front door, gestured him outside. He caught the back of her neck and kissed her hard, letting her know what was coming, and then he took the damn dog out.</p><p>-----</p><p>She was the one who shut the bedroom door on the dog and turned back for him, for Castle, her hands out to glance at his hipbones. “Waited for you,” she murmured.</p><p>He snagged the crotch of her panties and she came up on her toes with a little gasp. “Don’t think you did,” he said darkly, wriggling his finger close to her heat.</p><p>She growled something and unzipped his jeans, popped the button with a twist of her wrist. He watched her face as she pushed her hand into his boxers and found his cock, watched the pleased and vivid pleasure that burned in her eyes.</p><p>She really liked having him by the balls; she enjoyed that power over him and with him in this moment. She gave up more of herself than maybe she even knew, and like that he could be the subservient one to her dominance any day.</p><p>But he wanted to unwrap her. He wanted to pull the ribbon out of that shirt and tie her hands over her head, tie her ankles together so that he had to press his knee between her thighs and make a way for himself.</p><p>She’d writhe.</p><p>“Stop staring, start touching,” she growled at him.</p><p>He immediately lifted his hands to her shirt and cupped her breasts through the material. Kate worked his jeans over his hips and down, and he stepped out of them in one smooth movement. She quirked an eyebrow, impressed maybe, and he rubbed his thumbs over the place where her nipples peaked the padding of her bra.</p><p>Kate sucked in a breath.</p><p>He stroked his hands down her hips and settled at the bottom of her shirt, nudged the hem up to get at bare skin. She was humming now, pleased with him and his explorations, and she fisted his shirt in her hands and tugged.</p><p>He let go of her only to rip off his shirt and shove his boxers down. She watched his cock be revealed, her tongue touching her lip and darting away again. Castle moved back to her and maneuvered her towards the bed; she crawled onto it and laid down, still watching his cock.</p><p>He wanted to divert her from whatever plan she was forming behind those dark eyes and make her focus solely on him. And what pleasure he could bring her. He put a knee at her hip and hooked a finger in her panties, slid them slowly down her legs.</p><p>Kate arched her back to help and he teased her underwear off. She settled back against the mattress and he sank down on his haunches to run his fingers up that still-laced cleavage.</p><p>“Starts at the bottom right,” she murmured.</p><p>He gave her a lazy grin and trailed his hand down to the knotted ribbon just at her hip, cleverly disguised by the positioning of the eyelets and laces. He tugged at the knot a few times, long enough for him to press his body to her side, stretch out and get comfortable.</p><p>“Your cock is pulsing at my leg,” she whispered. Touched him lightly enough to make him groan.</p><p>He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, his hand pressing over that knot in her shirt.</p><p>“Need some help?”</p><p>“Yeah,” he croaked, sliding his fingers away.</p><p>But her hand instead circled his cock, stroking him. He found himself thrusting into her grip, humping her hip, already lost to her clever plan.</p><p>Kate laughed.</p><p>“Fuck, not funny,” he growled, gripping her by the wrist. “I’m gonna come all over your beautiful shirt, Beckett.”</p><p>“Might be worth it.”</p><p>“No, baby, let me open you up.”</p><p>She hummed as if she had to think about that but he removed her hand and shifted to lie down between her thighs, his erection pressed to the mattress where she couldn’t get at him. From there, he set to work at that knot again. With both hands now, he managed to get the thing undone, and then he was unthreading the ribbon out of the thin eyelets.</p><p>He sucked in a deep breath and tugged at the ribbon, making the whole thing looser and looser, until he stopped.</p><p>She groaned.</p><p>Castle lowered his mouth to her hip bone and nipped. “I want you over me,” he growled. “Straddling my hips, leaning in over me so your breasts spill out of their constraints.”</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” she gasped.</p><p>“I know you’re not wearing a bra.”</p><p>“Don’t—need one in this.”</p><p>“Then come on, love, climb on top of me.”</p><p>-----</p><p>She rode his cock with her hands pressed flat to his chest, her eyes open and her gaze burning on him.</p><p>He met her thrusts and watched her breasts swing in the last of the ribboned shirt, a nipple chafed by one loop, the other breast still half-caught. He finally let himself reach up with both hands and tug out the last of the ribbon, watching as her breasts spilled free and hung in front of his eyes.</p><p>“You’re beautiful,” he murmured and lifted his head to latch on.</p><p> </p><p>She cried out and clutched him there, and he sucked harder on her nipple. She tasted bitter, arousal leaking onto his tongue, and he sucked harder and then sank his teeth into her flesh.</p><p>Kate choked on his name, tensing around his cock.</p><p>He backed off, staring up at her, neck craned as he watched her shudder and try to hold it off, try to keep it together. He loved how desperately she fought to stave it off.</p><p>He rubbed the silk of the shirt over the abused nipple, dried his saliva with the remnants of her shirt. Her breasts swung enticingly and he couldn’t resist taking them in his hands and squeezing.</p><p>“Fuck, Richard,” she growled. She gripped his waist with her thighs, and her knees kept pressing in against his ribs like she was going to break every last one.</p><p>His neck was aching from holding himself up like this, and he let go of her breasts and fell back to the mattress. Palmed her hips in a kind of claim. She hovered over him, a dark angel, and twisted her hips down against his groin.</p><p>His cock throbbed inside her, his guts clenching with need.</p><p>He dug his thumb into her thigh muscle, felt the way her legs clenched around him again. She was close, so close, and he too wanted to ride it out a moment more—that sharp edge between pleasure and pain. Neither of them moved, panting for breath, staring at each other, locked in it.</p><p>He kneaded her inside thighs and lifted his head again for a kiss at her breasts. She clutched the nape of his neck to hold him there, but all he did was lightly touch his tongue and wet lips to her breasts, again and again, flexing hard to keep himself upright. He shifted to one elbow, it nudged his cock inside her cunt, and she whimpered. Her lashes fluttered, she was getting closer now, too close. He pushed his free hand up her thigh and bumped against the wetness of her sex.</p><p>Kate mewled in frustration, curling in—as if protectively—where they were joined, and he knew he had her.</p><p>He arrowed unerringly for her clit, using his thumb to press it against his own cock. She grunted and shied on his hips. He bucked to push deeper inside her; she shouted, clutching hard. He did it again, a quick withdrawal and fast thrust, and she cried out. Once more and she came apart around him, her cunt’s contractions hard and tight. He orgasmed deeply, her name dragged from his lips and twisted against her chest.</p><p>She clutched his head and fell back down with him, her body limp over his.</p><p>She smelled like sex-soaked satin.</p><p>He drew his arm up around her shoulders to keep her, but she didn’t move. She wasn’t going anywhere. The ribbon remnants of her shirt tied her to him.</p><p>-----</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate Beckett had asked for it.</p><p>She had known, wearing this shirt, making those suggestive remarks, encouraging him on the subway, that she was asking for another marathon sex session with the one man who never had trouble rebounding and always remembered to work her off as well. Which meant back to back orgasms and trembling thighs and not being able to walk without stiffness, but fuck, it was almost her birthday and she deserved the marathon.</p><p>After more than six weeks without him, she wasn’t quite conditioned for that marathon, but she’d gotten what she’d asked for.</p><p>Now she woke up, abruptly, in the darkness of near-morning, to find him looming over her in bed.</p><p>Fuck. His eyes were so blue it made her hurt, in a deep place, like every breath was broken glass. He had already managed to unlace the ribbon from the shirt, and now he dragged the ends of the soft satin across her belly.</p><p>She was lying on her back and trying to pretend that he way he looked at her didn’t make her absolutely wrecked.</p><p>Her skin rippled in the wake of his touch. Soft satin, soft beautiful silky satin lightly caressing her skin. She stared up at him, pinned by weight of his thighs thrown across hers. He had sat up to re-construct her shirt, or perhaps totally deconstruct it, but he’d weighed her down with his legs, kept her on her back in the bed. And then he’d begun to torture her naked body with that damn ribbon.</p><p>The satin trailed over her breasts and her nipples puckered as if twisted, sharp and aching with barely a touch. She shifted her legs to get a little friction, the heat of his body like a flame against her skin.</p><p>Suddenly Castle was shifting to straddle her knees, and he passed the long ribbon beneath the arch of her lower back, used it like a sling to tug her upright.</p><p>“Kneel on the bed for me, Beckett.”</p><p>She sat up, shifting her knees wider to get her balance, too willing to be confused. He began to wind the ribbon around her ribs, and she felt the constriction.</p><p>He was binding her breasts.</p><p>She cut in a sharp breath and he paused, lifted an eyebrow, tsked at her. “Let your breath out. Make it good and tight. No escaping.”</p><p>Beckett’s breath rushed out with involuntary obedience, her eyes fixed on the work of his hands. He had tied one end to the loop of satin he’d made around the top of her breasts, and now he wound it around her again, flattening her chest. Her nipples were exposed and throbbing, and every time Castle looped the ribbon around her, he managed to scrape and drag along those raw sensitive peaks.</p><p>She mewled when his palm brushed the slope of her breast, her noise humiliating in its desperation. She closed her eyes and Castle tightened the ribbon even further. Her breath left her, sucked shallowly back into her lungs, and Castle tied it off at her spine and let the satin trail her lower back like a tail.</p><p>He cupped her satin-clad breasts and thumbed her nipples. She moaned and her eyes flared open, breathlessness and arousal. Her nipples ached, almost chafed this way, her breasts crushed and yet put on display by their bindings.</p><p>Castle began to knead her breasts.</p><p>“Oh God. Don’t stop,” she begged. Swayed toward him.</p><p>“Feel good? I love the satin against the rough places on my hands, the callouses catching against the material. And then these strips of skin here and there between the ribbon, little strips of heat, and it makes me crazy for more of you.”</p><p>Kate stared at him, the flame rising, her body thick and swollen, her blood singing under that thin transparent skin.</p><p>He lowered his mouth to her breast.</p><p>She groaned and trembled, her heart beating too hard, and then his tongue came out and made the ribbon wet where it passed near her nipple. He took the material, and her nipple, into his mouth and sucked.</p><p>Kate cried out and gripped the back of his neck with both hands, her arm tangled in the tail of the ribbon, her fingers digging into his nape. Her hips bucked in the air, seeking his body, and she clawed at his shoulder, trying to force contact.</p><p>He growled and reached back, circled her wrists and drew her arms down to her sides while she knelt on the mattress for him. “No, baby. You don’t call the shots this time.”</p><p>She grunted in indignation, but he had already looped the ribbon around her wrist and pulled her arm behind her back—all without her realizing. She opened her mouth to—what? say no? Like she would ever say no—and found herself mewling instead.</p><p>It must be the lack of coffee. She wasn’t fully awake yet. She couldn’t be held accountable for her desperation.</p><p>He slid the silk along the inside of her arm and wrapped it around her other wrist, an infinity loop he threaded back and forth between her arms. Whenever she shifted to ease the ache starting in her shoulders, it tightened the tie between her wrists and her breasts, made her nipples chafe.</p><p>She groaned and her head fell forward to land on his clavicle.</p><p>“That’s right, baby. You’re not in control this time.”</p><p>He kept going, bound her up to her biceps before he snaked the last of the ribbon up over her shoulder. For a moment, Beckett felt him caress her neck, around her throat, as if he was thinking about it, and the immediate burst of panic made her head swim and her palms damp.</p><p>And her cunt was pretty fucking wet too. Not to forget that. Her thighs were slick with it.</p><p>Castle bypassed her neck and instead brought the last of the ribbon down her belly and between her legs like a thong. He tied the end to her wrists and she was stilling kneeling on the mattress, her hair caught in the ribbon and her cunt soaking the satin.</p><p>“You gonna unwrap me now?” she husked, lifting her eyes to him.</p><p>Oh, fuck. Big mistake. He was ready to devour her.</p><p>“Yes, you’re my gift. We’ll celebrate my birthday today, yours tomorrow.” Castle pressed his palm to the small of her back, his fingers gripping the ribbon and twisting.</p><p>She moaned as the material tightened on her breasts, excruciatingly crushed, her nipples throbbing. Castle peeled off his boxer briefs and dropped them to the floor, brought his hands to the back of her thighs and stroked up to her ass. She caught her breath and the ache tightened in her chest even as Castle began to knead her glutes.</p><p>His fingers brushed her anus with every pass, and she kept contracting and fluttering, seeking his cock in her empty places.</p><p>“Please, Rick,” she groaned. Her body was on fire. She knew he was there, that he could take her if he only would, but she thought he was having too much fun watching her writhe.</p><p>He tugged at the ribbon around her breasts, maneuvered it to cover one nipple, uncover the other. He lowered his head and suckled.</p><p>Kate groaned and arched into his mouth. She couldn’t—couldn’t take this. It was too much.</p><p>“Rick,” she pleaded.</p><p>His fingers teased around the ribbon at her breasts, pushing aside her flesh to stroke the marks the satin had made. He was slow and deliberate, but his erection throbbed at her hip. With Castle on his knees with her, their bodies brushed and nudged, made electric by the almost contact.</p><p>“I need you inside me,” she growled at him. “Can’t you just put me out of my fucking misery?”</p><p>“No, baby. The misery only makes it so much better.”</p><p>She groaned but he was bearing her back down, his body heavy over hers so that her arms and shoulders were twisted under her, her knees spread open. Fuck, it hurt. So good. She wanted him to fucking shove his way inside her, right now. “Castle.”</p><p>He nipped at the satin with his teeth, tugging so that it dragged over her nipple, a rough pass. She moaned and arched up into him, lost in the sensation of the blood pounding in her arms and the dart of pain where his teeth bit her nipple.</p><p>“Your breasts are swollen like this,” he husked against her. She growled but she couldn’t get to him, and he kept going like it wasn’t killing her. “Your nipples get so dark. I can bite you easily—all engorged and proud for me.”</p><p>“Fuck.” She just wanted him to fuck her, but he was putting all this other stuff in it, all this heavy shit that she couldn’t possibly handle. Not now, not after—she had no room for this as well as the other crap she carried.</p><p>Castle pressed his knees between hers, pressing on top of her, the ribbon biting into her skin because her arms were so far stretched.</p><p>And then she felt him there, the heat of his cock at her sex. He was moaning under his breath and stroking himself along her folds, getting himself wet, starting a teasing rhythm.</p><p>Why had she ever thought she could replace this?</p><p>She unfolded her legs and wrapped them around his torso, bucking into him. He widened her thighs; she shifted her hips to let herself open up to him. He growled into her mouth and sucked on her tongue and then his cock penetrated her with a quick thick stroke.</p><p>She was struck speechless, her mouth open and her eyes rolling back, the nothing coming for her like some dark, drowning wave.</p><p>“Please,” she cried out.</p><p>Her breasts hurt, bound so tightly, her shoulders aching. Castle sank down, his full weight crushing her. She struggled to breathe, constricted by satin, and then Castle began to fuck her.</p><p>Trussed and bound. Fucked hard.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He wasn't sure he could fall asleep after the long hours down from the program. But he must have, because he was waking up around four in the morning to find her splayed across his body. He was on his back, sweaty with the last of his sleep, and she couldn't possibly be comfortable like this on top of him. Her elbow was digging into his hip bone, her knee pulled up and tucked under his thigh, perilously close to the part of him she liked best, and her mouth was open.</p><p>Her breath was hot and ticklish, and then he realized the dog was in bed with them too. Castle growled at the wolf, shifted slightly to sweep a leg under the animal and push him back down. Cujo whined and lumbered up, apparently in a deep sleep, but instead of getting down, he jumped over Castle's leg and moved to the other side of the bed.</p><p>Fuck it. The dog had saved his life once. And now that he thought about it, Cujo probably slept with her while he was gone.</p><p>Who was he to kick the wolf out?</p><p>Cujo was still whining at him, disgruntled at being woken, and Castle used his big toe to stroke the dog's fur. "No, hush. Lie down. You can stay. Don't wake her up."</p><p>"I'm awake," she mumbled at his chest.</p><p>He drew his arm around her and tangled his fingers in the hair at the back of her neck. He’d had a bitch of a time getting that ribbon off her after they’d come a few times. "Naw, baby. You're asleep. Go back to dreams."</p><p>"No, I'm not," she murmured. But she sighed against his bare skin and her body was still slack and heavy, still that warm pliancy of sleep. Castle rubbed his thumb at the bone behind her ear, the place that made her curl into him and practically purr, and sure enough, her contentment rumbled in her throat and vibrated right above his heart.</p><p>He wasn't tired now—he'd slept off the regimen and now he was back on track—but he was enjoying these dark early hours with her too much to get up. He wouldn't turn on a light to read—she'd wake then for sure—but it was almost better this way, strangely comforting, to have her trusting and asleep on top of him and the dog curled at his knee and calf. Like their own little family.</p><p>Fuck, she’d jump out of bed right this second if she knew his mind was wandering down that path.</p><p>His fingers caught in a tangle of her hair and he worked slowly to unravel the knot, patient with it, not in a hurry. He had all morning, if he needed, and it wasn't vital to anyone that he manage to unsnarl the soft, fine hair at her nape. It was just pleasant, and it soothed him, and if it helped her stay asleep somehow, that was good too.</p><p>He could work at it as long as he needed to. He could stay here forev—</p><p>An ambulance siren whooped to life in the street below and shattered the illusion he'd lulled himself into. His fingers stilled against her neck and he took a slow breath in and out again.</p><p>He actually wouldn't be staying here forever. It wasn't possible.</p><p>But he had three months.</p><p>He was going to have to find a way to... to make this work for them. He wasn't going to keep leaving her with nothing to hold on to, with nothing at all to at least have hope in. She needed someone to stand shoulder to shoulder with her in the real work of life. Nights she had to pick up her father and came home crying because it was just that bad, or days when the job wasn't giving her what she needed and it only proved more frustrating, or times when no one else wanted to be patient and wait her out to hear what she had to say.</p><p>Because that was his job now. Last night, this handful of days, had shifted something for them. He was the one meant to be by her side, and he had to find a way to give her the strength of belief in him for the times when he couldn't be physically present.</p><p>His absence was going to happen. He had a job to do—a way of life that required absences.</p><p>But he would take these three months and he would shore up her belief in him until leaving her didn't even make a dent, until leaving her meant coming back would be all the more fun for them.</p><p>She didn't mind being bruised, and he didn't mind bruising her. But breaking her wasn't an option.</p><p>-----</p><p>"What are you going to do?" she murmured into his skin. “While I’m at work.”</p><p>Castle cupped the back of her neck and angled her mouth to his, kissed her softly in the entryway to her apartment. He was only wearing low-slung jeans in an attempt to lure her back to bed—again—but he knew this time it wouldn't work.</p><p>"I don't know," he admitted. "Think of something, I'm sure."</p><p>"No more security modifications. The alarm is bad enough." She curled her fingers at his biceps as if to push him away, but instead she stayed. Right against him.</p><p>"No cameras?"</p><p>"Hard limit, Richard."</p><p>He chuckled and brushed a kiss against her cheek. She was in those heavy black boots but not the rest of the uniform. She'd stopped wearing it to and from work recently and he wondered why. What had happened. She was leaving her weapon locked up at work and he could come up with a thousand bad scenarios and only a few good ones, and he hoped it wasn't any of the bad. (Like being better able to resist temptation. Like being afraid she'd have to use it. Like getting accosted on the subway ride home because she was in uniform; he had no idea.)</p><p>"No cameras," he said, making it a put-out sigh to get her. She chuckled softly for it, and then she released him, stepping away.</p><p>"I've got to go."</p><p>"Go," he said, a promise in it that he'd be here when she got back.</p><p>So she went.</p><p>Castle watched her leave and heard the lock in the door after her, and he had to resist the urge to follow. To shadow her for the day like he'd done that first week they'd met.</p><p>She wouldn't appreciate it. And he knew her enough now to see that following her around would make her think he had no faith in her. But at least he'd had that chat with Royce and he felt reasonably certain her former training officer was doing right by her, watching her back. He did wonder when she might be partnered with someone else though, since the probationary period was long over.</p><p>When he got back to the bedroom, he had a call on the burner from the Lady M Cake place inside the Plaza. No voicemail, of course, not on this phone, but he called the man back quickly, hoping to catch him before his day started.</p><p>He wanted everything to be good for her tomorrow. He knew things wouldn't be perfect—nothing ever was—but a quiet night with her father and then out for dessert to celebrate... surely that wasn't asking too much?</p><p>Even as the man answered the phone, Castle thought it might be a good idea to call Jim and make certain everything was going right for that birthday dinner.</p><p>-----</p><p>Jim was at work. He was terse and quiet, and Castle wondered if he was hungover. From a Monday night drinking binge? Beckett never usually had to go out for him during the week, did she?</p><p>Did she?</p><p>He wasn't sure now.</p><p>"Sorry, Jim, I was trying to get clear about Wednesday. Tomorrow. Kate's—"</p><p>"I know what tomorrow is," Jim said over the phone. His voice sounded funny. "Don't you think I know? I'm doing my best here."</p><p>"Okay," Castle said, going still. He’d seen Jim and Kate Beckett’s communication deteriorate in just this way. "Okay, you really are. I see that."</p><p>"Don't ask," Jim sighed. Castle wasn't sure if her father was talking to him or someone on that end in his office.</p><p>"Sir. Should I be planning dinner myself?" he asked. He needed to know; this didn't seem right. He wasn't sure what was going on here, but if he assumed Jim was coming or taking her out, and her father didn't...</p><p>"It's just difficult," Jim said.</p><p>"Difficult."</p><p>"You don't understand. But it's—it takes an effort."</p><p>"So... make the effort," Castle said. His own voice was cracking now. How could Jim not want to spend time with her on her own damn birthday?</p><p>"Making the effort isn't the problem."</p><p>"You mean Kate?" he said, incredulous. "I think if you showed up, she'd be happy. I don't think it's Kate you need to worry about."</p><p>"Perhaps a restaurant is the best place," Jim murmured. "I don't know any more. She won't want me—it's better if it's out in public."</p><p>Well, Castle had to admit that might be true. "All right. Should... I be making reservations?"</p><p>"If you—yes, sure. Just send the name of the place and the time to my email and I'll..."</p><p>"Make the effort," Castle supplied. Jim made another noise of displeasure and then the phone disconnected and Castle realized the man had hung up on him.</p><p>He had no idea what had just happened.</p><p>-----</p><p>After he called around a few places, he sent her father the information—a restaurant that wouldn't require a prior reservation just in case they ended up somewhere else, doing other things. What other things, he had no idea; Castle just knew that it was her birthday on Wednesday and surely something was going to be done.</p><p>Most people did stuff. He was clear on that. He remembered, vaguely somewhere, the taste of lemon frosting on his tongue and one of the trainer’s arms around his shoulders, squeezing. It was all he had of the sense of birthdays, and his father had put a stop to it when he’d found out.</p><p>He thought about surprising Kate for lunch, but he didn’t want her to know he had her GPS tracked by her cell phone. He was biding his time on that one, waiting for the day when he could ask her to carry a little device, unobtrusive, just so he'd know. But when he'd mentioned something like that when they'd first met, she'd shot him a nasty look and asked if he particularly wanted to be disemboweled.</p><p>And then a few months ago, he'd brought it up thinking she was in a better place and she'd insinuated that if he even tried it, she'd do the same to him. He couldn't very well let her GPS track him. But he got the message; he understood. It wasn't fair only going one way.</p><p>Now that he thought about it, it was even less fair than he'd assumed. Not only because his job required secrecy, but because she couldn't—at any given time—possibly know where he was or if he was okay. If she needed to call in the troops for an air rescue. If he was going to be nearby any time in the following weeks.</p><p>She couldn't even count on him.</p><p>He hadn't really understood that until this weekend.</p><p>He also still had no fucking clue how to change that, except for having these three months when she most assuredly could. After that, he was hoping to have found the exact right solution, a way for him to be what she needed and still the spy, and then he'd make up for all these past eighteen months where she hadn’t been able to rely on him for anything.</p><p>If he could manage to be here on the weekends, he thought that would go a long way. Lots of people in relationships commuted to work during the week or traveled all week and then came home again. Beckett could handle herself no matter where he was, here or there, but it'd be nice for her to know he was solid come Saturday morning.</p><p>(He didn’t see John Black agreeing to a term of conditions in which Richard Castle, built and groomed to be the most clandestine of operatives, would be allowed to show up in New York City regularly on weekends.)</p><p>Damn. He needed a plan.</p><p>Castle spread out a few notepads in front of him and he jotted down ideas as they came to him. He usually did his work on the computer, but he didn't trust the security she had on her desktop for long-range plans, not when her security was what he'd installed himself from the CIA office. His father's stuff.</p><p>No. No, he was keeping her well away from John Black. The fuck-up in Ireland was too fresh in both of their minds for Castle to think his father wouldn't start spying on Beckett a little more closely now.</p><p>He sketched out his plans using bullet points at first, and he switched to thought bubbles because he remembered those vaguely from one boarding school where they'd also made him read literature. Progressive, his father had called it, and yanked him after one semester.</p><p>Progressive was working for him, though. As Castle let things flow straight to the page, it actually made more ideas come, concepts from psychology about hostage-taking and subduing that were applicable in broad strokes. Other things too—investigative techniques, Krav Maga strikes, methods for maintaining an asset, that kind of thing. He was a spy and so he thought like a spy, even when it came to the keeping and care of Kate Beckett.</p><p>What it came down to, after pages and pages of yellow legal pad, was that trust was built over time. He needed the time to devote to her. A year, probably, to ingrain in her a habit of expectation and to create the strongest behavior.</p><p>Which meant Castle had to come up with a good enough reason to stick around the New York office. Or the DC office where his father worked from. One year. He'd done it in other locations in his work for the CIA. A year here or there, working deep cover.</p><p>This would be a year in New York working the most important cover he'd created—Rick Rogers. Not the spy Richard Castle, not the Army man JR Black, not even the in-between no-man's land of hazy Richards that his father used.</p><p>Rick Rogers. He didn't love taking (what he thought was) his mother's maiden name, but he had some good groundwork already laid out and he could work with it. He kinda loved it when Beckett called him Rick—that had been her nickname for him in the beginning—and Castle had come about because of her as well, but Rogers was so far untainted. A man apart.</p><p>He needed a year as Rick Rogers. Just a year. It could be done.</p><p>A year. Until he could kick Jim Beckett’s ass into shape and maybe set down some ground rules about the crazy-ass shit she got herself into. Maybe. He knew how well ground rules would go over, but if he was doing that crazy shit with her, being her back-up on those undercover ops of hers, then she might listen to reason, and maybe even some self-preservation would kick in when he had to be gone. He'd teach her how to plan, how to employ combat strategy, how to take a hit and keep going. He'd teach her, basically, how to be a soldier, and if it moved her up the chain of command that much faster, then that was worth it.</p><p>(Of course, lately she had taught him how to think on his feet and get creative, how to see outside the box of military rules and his father’s codes of conduct, and he didn’t see that wild ferocity in her ever really being tamed.)</p><p>She wanted to make Homicide; she'd already told him that. Vice was her way in, and she was doing this stuff on the side to make a name for herself. Assignments in Vice as an officer led to trust, led to recognition by those in command, led to better assignments.</p><p>Hell, he bet if she solved her mother's murder case, that'd go a long way to making a name. Wouldn't it? Shit, why hadn't he thought of that before? Of course, the whole point of making a name was to be promoted to detective and then solve her mother's case, at least it seemed to be her raison d'etre, and he had no idea what she did after she had those answers.</p><p>If, instead of teaching her to be a brave soldier, he taught her how to think like a spy, move like a spy, go in fast like a spy...</p><p>Maybe after a year, when they had her mother's case sewn up and justice on its way, maybe Kate Beckett would consider coming with him.</p><p>Well, fuck.</p><p>The idea made his heart race, his palms sweaty; he was hard for her and she wasn't even here, but just the thought of it did sick-wonderful things to his guts.</p><p>This was a long-range asset in the making. This was ideal really; he could play this just right; he could do this. He'd get started right now, bust his balls on the Johanna Beckett thing (quietly, or she'd fucking castrate him), and then when he presented it to her, neatly wrapped, he'd have fait accompli for getting her in with him at the CIA. What would she need the NYPD for?</p><p>He wanted Beckett as his partner; she needed the quest. It was perfect.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle checked the time. It was late now and long past shift change, and he didn't know where she was.</p><p>He'd taken Sasha out again and read another of her Russian novels, and then he'd tried a few recipes from online, stocking up her freezer again like he had the last time he'd been here. But it was creeping up on six o'clock and even a last-minute call at the end of shift wouldn't take two hours to process.</p><p>Would it?</p><p>Maybe it would.</p><p>He was having circular thoughts now, a spinning and endless loop. He had the burner phone but he couldn't remember if he'd given her this number, so she might not be able to call him even if she wanted to. He didn't know where she was, but he knew she was still in the city—(and what about her? She usually had no idea where he was or what was happening. No wonder she was hot and cold with him, no wonder she shut down unexpectedly, no wonder she thought he had other women.)</p><p>To distract himself, Castle sat at her desk with Cujo at his feet and opened up her secure browser on the desktop computer. He hesitated to GPS track her right now, when his father would definitely be watching the system for Castle's username, but he could do some research on the NYPD, just to have an understanding for times like this.</p><p>He was going to be in town for three months, right? Might as well.</p><p>As he did a deeper background on NYPD policies and procedures, Castle was coming to the conclusion that he needed a secure and invisible way into the CIA system. A way to do the work for Beckett without his father looking over his shoulder. A way that wouldn't show up on reports, wouldn't be noted in the logs as an EO—'extraordinary'—and most importantly, a username that wouldn't make waves.</p><p>That kind of quiet and under the radar subversion was how he'd survived this long under his father's military discipline and programming, and he knew it was the only way he could keep Beckett.</p><p>(As if she were a thing to keep.)</p><p>It was becoming apparent that he had a few essential projects during his probation—a ghost log in he could use, a murder case to solve, a seduction of the heart to begin. In his mind, almost subconsciously, he'd begun to call it Operation: Beckett.</p><p>Now if she'd only come home and ease his mind.</p><p>-----</p><p>“You’re waiting up?”</p><p>Castle stood from the couch and the dog jumped down as well, tail wagging as he greeted Beckett. It looked to be a routine, because Kate’s hand came down and scratched between Cujo’s ears even as she shed her work gear.</p><p>She was wearing it all—the uniform, the gun, the kevlar. Shit, that was sexy. He was turned on just looking at her, imposing in her uniform, authoritative.</p><p>But it was nearly nine o’clock and she looked absolutely exhausted.</p><p>Castle came to her in the entry and caught her hand as she reached for the zipper of the NYPD coat. He unzipped her himself, ignoring the faint flicker of suspicion in her eyes, and he let his fingers skim her hips, her ribs. He drew his hands up to her shoulders and pushed the coat off her arms, tossed it towards the couch.</p><p>The dog twined around their legs, in and out, eager for Kate, but Castle moved for the buckle of her utility belt, the heavy thing strapped so tight to keep all the gear from falling right off her slim frame. Kate let out a breath that ghosted his cheek and he stepped in a little closer, his arms around her torso as he drew the belt off.</p><p>“Safety on?” he murmured, the gun in its holster still clipped to the belt hanging from his hands.</p><p>“Mm—yeah,” she muttered. Her head turned and her hair caught in the rasp of his five o’clock shadow, but he only slowly let the belt wind down to the floor.</p><p>Kate made a movement as if to turn away, but he caught her by the hips and stayed her, his fingers at the velcro on her Kevlar vest.</p><p>He wasn’t looking for anything tonight, but he wasn’t about to undress her like a child. Not when they could have so much fun with it.</p><p>Castle brushed his cheek against hers as he dipped his head for her neck. The sound of the velcro ripping apart made her startle; his sharp tug at the straps had her coming up on her toes into him. He kissed the salty, overwarm skin at her throat and licked down towards her collarbones as he peeled the kevlar away.</p><p>“You got a thing for bulletproof vests?” she sighed. She was going for sardonic, he had no doubt, but it came off anticipatory. Wanting.</p><p>“Mm, I do,” he hummed. “I have a thing for you in kevlar, most definitely.”</p><p>She let out a snort, but he was already un-piecing the stiff vest, drawing it down her arms and letting it fall. It made a heavy sound when it hit the floor and by the ripple of irritation across her face, she didn’t like it.</p><p>Castle hid his smirk and picked it up again, put it over the couch with her coat, the two sides loose and shifting in his hands. When he turned back, afraid he’d lost the tone of his confrontation, she was still there, watching him.</p><p>Nothing lost at all.</p><p>Her eyes met his with twin flames, blue and low, the fire that would burn itself to the last embers, hunched and ready like a sentinel. He was finally down to the black turtleneck and he reached in for bare skin, rucking her shirt up at her hips.</p><p>Kate let out a little breath and and her fingers curled in a wordless command. He heeded it, left her shirt on to tug her by the button of her uniform pants.</p><p>She came, stumbling into him, and he caught her with an arm around her shoulders and his hand burying into the hair at the nape of her neck. The knot unwound with a hook of his finger into the rubberband and then her hair fell soft and promising over his wrist.</p><p>He kissed her.</p><p>Even as he worked his free hand at the zipper of her pants and skimmed his palm along her bare hip below to loosen them, he was kissing her. Soft and delicate, his lips sensitized to the chapped corners of her mouth, his tongue touching and making her wet.</p><p>She gave another little whining breath and he pushed both hands under her waistband and squeezed her ass. The uniform pants fell, and she kicked her legs to free herself while Castle kneaded those firm glute muscles. She wrapped one bare leg around his hip but he drew her back down, instead inserted his thigh between hers, rocked her forward onto him.</p><p>Kate moaned, a soft little noise. He could feel the heat of her inside thighs even through his jeans and he gripped her ass tighter and breathed heavily against her cheek. He rocked her pelvis into his quad again.</p><p>He felt her eyes close; the lashes on her lid as they fell brushed his cheek, and he kept his arms banded around her so that she couldn’t move to get to him.</p><p>But she did. Of course she did. She arched her neck and pressed herself into his chest and found his ear, nipped at the vulnerable skin just there at his jaw. She sucked on his earlobe, breathy half-murmurs that felt like love coming out of her mouth, and he started a quick, tight rhythm, rocking her against his thigh.</p><p>She came with a little cry, her body cringing into his. He gripped her thigh with one hand, found that place between her legs to thumb her harder. Her second orgasm tripped over the first, her face buried in his neck while she quaked with it.</p><p>He carried her back to her bedroom, distracting her with his mouth against hers and his tongue asking inside. Her arm came around his neck to hold on, but he laid her back against the mattress and peeled the turtleneck right over her head.</p><p>Kate was now in only panties and her bra, and when he released the clasp, her breasts spilled out. She looked raw and aching and he crawled into bed with her, drew her into his chest to spoon at her back, wrapped around her, and he dug his chin into her neck and shoulder, getting comfortable.</p><p>The whole time she’d said maybe a string of words, and but for the half-senseless things she’d moaned in his ear, she hadn’t said a single thing to him. No demands, no directions, but no putting him off either.</p><p>He could feel her heart still slingshotting around in her ribs, but after a few moments, that tapered off as well.</p><p>She was falling asleep.</p><p>He didn’t ask what kind of day it had been; she hadn’t stopped to change in the locker room at the precinct, she had come straight here still in the heavy bulletproof vest. He didn’t need to hear the details to know it had been shit for her, and she hadn’t known how to deal.</p><p>Thankfully, she knew that he understood, and knew he would take what he needed from her if he had to.</p><p>But he didn’t have to. What he needed right now was Beckett to no longer look at him like she couldn’t quite trust that he was here.</p><p>He was just going to have to work on that.</p><p>-----</p><p>When her alarm went off that morning, Castle rolled over on top of her to thumb the snooze, and then he stayed there, elbows propping him up, until she finally opened her eyes.</p><p>He grinned and softly kissed her. "Happy Birthday. Now I don't feel quite so much like I'm entirely too old for you."</p><p>She laughed around his lips, her arm snaking out and curling at his neck. "One year made the difference?'</p><p>"Well, now you're twenty-five. Feels less like I seduced a co-ed."</p><p>She slid her knee up to his hip and curled her calf tightly around the back of his thigh. Her eyebrow arched. "Who seduced whom?"</p><p>"Oh, grammar police," he hummed, dropping his mouth to kiss her softly. "I like it."</p><p>"You do?"</p><p>"I have a thing for specificity, for getting it right the first time." He trailed a line down her throat with his mouth, felt her squirm under him.</p><p>"I have a thing for men far older than me—"</p><p>He bit the soft flesh of her breast and she yelped, laughing, but she didn't stop.</p><p>"—for men who tie me up with ribbon and make me come," she finished.</p><p>He groaned into her breasts and she vibrated in response, arousal pulsing for attention. She arched under him and spread her thighs, widening to take him against her, and it was fast turning into a very happy birthday for him again.</p><p>Castle rolled with her, putting himself on his back and her on top of him, and she sat up to straddle his hips, her knees clamping down on him. "I'm serious, Rick. The ribbon from my shirt needs to go back. You promised."</p><p>"I got distracted," he murmured, again distracted by the lush curves of her breasts swinging as she rocked against his boxers. He reached up and thumbed her nipples, cupped her breasts to carry them, the weight of them in his hands so perfect and ripe. She moaned and bore down hard onto him, and he encouraged her against him, deeper, more urgent.</p><p>"Distracted now?" she panted.</p><p>"No, baby. All my focus is on you."</p><p>"Good. Now give me a really happy birthday."</p><p>He laughed because he'd been thinking the same thing, and he lifted up and wrapped himself around her, drove his hand hard between her legs until she cried out. Her orgasm was fierce, fast, and it shook her head to toe. He eased his assault, smoothed his wet fingers against her thigh, and they both fell back to the mattress. She curve next to him, her heart pounding and vibrating through his chest until his own beat in rhythm with hers.</p><p>She made his pulse race.</p><p>"How's the birthday so far?" he murmured.</p><p>She chuckled and kissed the skin right at the collar of his shirt, her fingers curling in and under. "You have more presents for me?" she hummed. "I want to unwrap you now."</p><p>"Any present you like," he gruffed, "you can have."</p><p>-----</p><p>"I'm tangled," she laughed at him.</p><p>"Me too," he admitted. He shifted off of her and she came tumbling with him; now her body was pressed against his side, her breasts warm. "Hang on. It's all knotted."</p><p>"Good thing I set my alarm early," she muttered at him. But it was half-hearted, he could tell. She was enjoying it, their bound bodies. He was tempted to give up trying and just let himself be tangled up with her until...</p><p>Well, reality would happen eventually.</p><p>"I don't think that's working," she said, her voice in his ear like honey, warm with amusement. "Gonna have to get a knife."</p><p>"Oh, but your shirt. I was gonna put it back."</p><p>"No, don't, no. This ribbon has been—gross, Castle."</p><p>He laughed and gave up unknotting the satin between them. He had gotten inside a loop around her torso and it had twisted and then the place where he'd tied it off had only tightened and grown sticky with... yeah, now he could see why she didn't want the ribbon threading back through her shirt.</p><p>"Maybe if I wash it?" he offered.</p><p>Kate snorted and clung to his neck, her body rippling under him with strength. "Oh, baby, that's a good one. You washing clothes."</p><p>"I wash clothes," he insisted, but honestly.</p><p>"You don't. You leave whatever you have here and I wash them and then you come home and—oh, look, magic!—clean clothes."</p><p>He chuckled to keep it going, not show weakness, but she'd said you come home and it made his heart as tight and clenched as the knots in the ribbon. He buried his face next to hers on the pillow and laughed but it was a little desperate even for him.</p><p>"So I'm bad at laundry," he said. His voice sounded like sand paper. She shivered and pressed her fingers at his side, her other arm practically bound to him, looped around his neck.</p><p>"You're bad at laundry," she murmured. She had settled somewhat, and he was afraid she'd heard her own declarations in the words. But her body gentled, didn't move away from him, and he shifted to try and give her breathing room.</p><p>"But you got my back," he said carefully. She was washing the clothes he'd left here; she had even bought him new ones, though neither of them had said that. "Wouldn't do for me to run around naked."</p><p>"Oh, no?" she said. All arch and lovely innocence. "It would do for me."</p><p>He laughed, grateful this whole conversation was blowing right by the real meat of things. "You like me naked," he said. It wasn't a question; they both knew the answer. "I like you naked too, but you keep putting clothes on."</p><p>"Work," she said suddenly, startled. "Okay, Castle, seriously. I have to report for my shift in two hours."</p><p>"I'll have to cut it," he sighed mournfully. She laughed, the sound tailing off into a hum, like she was pleased with him.</p><p>"Oh, baby, cutting the ribbon will ruin all your fun, won't it?"</p><p>"Not all my fun. I can be inventive. I got skills. I can tie it back together."</p><p>She took a breathless moment against him—he could feel the caught stumble of her heart—and then she turned her mouth into his cheek and she kissed him.</p><p>On his cheek. Her teeth scraping and her tongue and the way she sucked at his skin—hottest thing he'd ever felt. His body was wrapped in satin and bound to Beckett and she was moving against him like she wanted it one more time before he started setting them free.</p><p>He could do that.</p><p>He angled his hips and pushed himself inside her again, giving them both what they wanted.</p><p>-----</p><p>"You have something planned, don't you?"</p><p>She was giving him a hard look as he tried to shoo her out the door; he locked it behind them and ushered her towards the staircase. "Plans?" he said innocently. "Only the ones you know about."</p><p>"I don't like surprises, Richard."</p><p>He smirked because of course Beckett didn't like surprises, but she took it wrong, stopping mid-stride and turning on him, her hands at his hips and shoving him back. He didn't lose his balance—he would never—and she knew that, he was sure, but it did make him stop.</p><p>"Castle. I can't take—No, no surprises. Don't do that to me."</p><p>She looked desperate, suddenly, and a clear and stunning insight hit him like lightning.</p><p>She was afraid he was planning something with her father. Which he was; he intended her father to show up at the restaurant, which was why Castle planned on maybe heading to Jim's apartment and strong-arming him into sobriety this morning.</p><p>But he couldn't very well go with the man to his place of work, sit on him all day, and then ghost him home. Castle would have to meet Beckett at the 12th after her shift was over, and on top of that, now she was looking at him like it was the worst idea in the world to celebrate her birthday at all.</p><p>"Not doing anything to you," he told her. "Just dinner and a fancy dessert, okay? That's all, Kate."</p><p>Dinner with her father. If he showed up. Shit, if he showed up drunk, what were they going to do?</p><p>Holy hell, he hadn't even thought of that. "Does your father—”</p><p>"No," she said tightly. "He doesn't. We don't. It's better that way."</p><p>He couldn't imagine. No, actually, he could imagine. Her father getting up this morning and knowing the day was here, a pep-talk in the mirror, convincing himself he could do it for her, for his Katie, he could keep it together. He'd start out with good intentions, he would be resolute all morning.</p><p>And then work would end, and it'd be the time that he would have met with his wife and they would have planned dinner, couple of first-time empty-nesters, smiling at each other over a dinner date, illicit in their rare evening out. And then the long walk home, the subway filled with people but also loneliness, the grief rising up and pouring through the cracks in his soul.</p><p>So that when Jim arrived home, it was just one drink to keep his hands from shaking, his loneliness in check. He was still okay; he'd be fine for her birthday dinner. He was going to make it this year. He didn’t have to think about Johanna and the six hours of labor to give birth to their precious beautiful baby girl.</p><p>And then one more drink because the first had worn off, and he really needed that second to smudge the memory of his wife holding their newborn daughter, the joy on her face when she had handed Kate to him, and how he'd disappointed her in so many ways, how he'd let them both down—</p><p>Ah, shit. Shit.</p><p>Bad move, Richard. Calling her father.</p><p>"You and me?" Kate asked then. She could see it in his eyes, he had no doubt.</p><p>He swallowed. "You and me," he rasped. He gripped the back of her neck and tugged her against him, her head only coming up to his sternum as she was a few steps below him on the staircase. He'd figure out a way. He'd keep her father... he had no idea, but he'd figure it out.</p><p>He palmed the side of her face and pressed her against him, but she was already squirming away, headed down the stairs.</p><p>"I can't be late," she croaked.</p><p>It had hit her too, he knew. It was swirling around in her head—all those birthdays made finite by her mother’s death, the long stretch of birthdays ahead without her.</p><p>He had no idea what mothers were supposed to do. No idea what fathers were supposed to do, when it came down to it. He had an archive of random television shows and he thought it was supposed to be a thing, but here she was walking out of her apartment complex and not even waiting for him.</p><p>Just escaping.</p><p>"Kate," he called, catching the security door and letting it close softly. He hated having her name called out on the sidewalk in front of people, identifying her, but she stopped and turned her head to look at him.</p><p>He didn't know what to say. She seemed to see his need and came back to him, grabbed him by his arms, and kissed him hard on the mouth.</p><p>"Bye for now," she said fiercely. And then she slipped into the rush hour commute and away.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle bit the bullet and called Jim Beckett at work.</p><p>“Son.”</p><p>“Ah, sir, Jim, it’s Kate’s birthday today.”</p><p>A strained silence told Castle he should have never stirred the pot. “You can’t come,” he blurted out, winced. “I mean. To dinner, dessert, for her birthday. You can’t come.”</p><p>“I... can’t?”</p><p>“No. I apologize for the inconvenience, for the trouble and—and the heartache I may have caused by my—”</p><p>“Did she tell you to say that?”</p><p>“...No.”</p><p>“She did.”</p><p>“She did not, sir, no.” He summoned all of his considerable skill set to soothe this over. “It was my intention to go low-key for Kate’s birthday dinner, but she indicated to me that she hadn’t done much for her birthday in the previous years. Since her mother’s death. And I would like, if you’ll allow it, sir, to spend this evening with her at the Plaza.”</p><p>There was absolute silence on the other end of the phone.</p><p>Castle thought he’d set himself up very nicely, and he allowed a bit of stammering to come into his voice. “Ah, sir, I meant—see, what I’m saying is that—not the Plaza Hotel, as in, not to stay there tonight, we’re not doing that—well, I suppose we are, truly, but only to say, the Plaza has a very expensive restaurant, and there’s the Lady M Bakery which, honestly, you told me to do—”</p><p>Jim Beckett’s dry chuckle sent an answering secret smile to Richard’s mouth. And then her father’s words sealed the deal. “Son, I understand, I get it. You want to do something romantic for Katie’s birthday, and an old man like me has no part in it.”</p><p>Perfect. “Ah, yes sir,” he mumbled, letting a hint of shame creep in.</p><p>“No, no, it’s just as well, seeing how infrequently you’re able to get furlough to the States, son.”</p><p>Well, that was perhaps a little dig by one Jim Beckett, but Castle could take it. He wasn’t wrong either.</p><p>“I won’t horn in on your birthday plans for my daughter, but please, for both our sakes, don’t tell me if you wind up staying the night at the Plaza?”</p><p>He let a note of nervousness into his laugh, cleared his throat and even bobbed his head, as usual getting his whole body into the act. “Yes, sir, of course sir, I will definitely not speak a word of this.”</p><p>“Thank you.” Jim gave a contented noise. “Now, I have work to do, and it sounds like you have quite the feat to pull off.”</p><p>“Feat?” he said, barely paying attention now that he’d smoothed the way.</p><p>“Katie isn’t one for romance.”</p><p>“Oh.” Fuck, that was true, wasn’t it? “Doesn’t mean she can’t be.”</p><p>“Can’t be what?”</p><p>“Romanced.”</p><p>He was damn well going to try.</p><p>-----</p><p>He walked the city.</p><p>He’d told her just dessert but he’d thought dinner might be necessary. Not with Jim Beckett, no, but something else. It left him scrambling, but of course, Richard Castle perversely enjoyed scrambling, the last minute plans, the urgency that threatened to blossom into panic, the laser-like focus that always came into play when he had a mission.</p><p>He did his best work under pressure.</p><p>At six when Kate texted you better not have a whole thing, he knew that meant she was getting off shift and he had to hustle.</p><p>He met her on her way to the subway station, stepped out of a doorway and stood in the middle of the sidewalk during rush hour to make everyone go around him. He was wearing a grey suit, a necktie in the same deep purple as the dress she didn’t yet know she’d be wearing, and the jacket she’d unknowingly inspired him to buy that first time they’d met.</p><p>She saw him immediately, her hair tucked up in a pony tail, pale-faced, her bag slung cross-body. She saw him and her eyes narrowed, and he grinned like an idiot and tugged on the gaudy-as-hell balloon with its rainbow happy birthday! on a shiny silver background.</p><p>“You fucking asshole,” she muttered, meeting him in the middle of the sidewalk just before the underground to the station. “I told you not to do this.”</p><p>He held out the balloon but she refused to take it, her head jerking back on her neck. “Do what?” He chuckled and turned, wound his arm through hers.</p><p>She squeezed his hand against her ribs but scowled. “What are you doing here, Richard?”</p><p>“I’m here to escort you home, where I have laid out your evening wear—” He was severely elbowed for that, and, oofing, he sidestepped and pulled her with him.</p><p>Past the subway station.</p><p>“Where—wait—where are we going?”</p><p>“I have a car waiting.”</p><p>She gaped.</p><p>He grinned and tugged her towards the limousine idling at the next curb, threading her through the crowded sidewalk. The balloon bobbed and bounced on its string, and Kate stared at him, at the car, then him. “What.”</p><p>“Come on. Change clothes, we’re going out for your birthday.”</p><p>Someone in the crowd called out happy birthday! and it was echoed by another laughing voice go with it!, and while both were being a bit of a jerk, he saw the flash of pure shyness go over her face.</p><p>She was impressed. She was wooed.</p><p>He opened the back door to the car and swept his arm towards the seat. “Would you do me the honor?” The balloon swayed in a breeze. They were drawing a crowd, a couple of people had taken out their cell phones and were snapping pictures.</p><p>She flushed bright red and hurried toward the limo, scooted inside and over. He followed her in, careful to reel in the balloon, and then shut the door. When he tapped on the screened partition, the limo pulled out into traffic.</p><p>“Rick,” she murmured, shook her head. But she didn’t protest. And when they pulled up to her apartment twenty minutes later, she got out of the limo and held out a hand to stay him. “No. You don’t get to watch. We’ll never leave the apartment, and you have something... I can tell by that look on your face that you’re excited.”</p><p>“Who me?”</p><p>She narrowed her eyes. “I’ll get it out of you,” she muttered. “But you don’t get to watch. Sit, stay. Here. And I’ll be down, fast as I can.”</p><p>“You don’t have to be fast,” he promised.</p><p>“You picked out my dress?”</p><p>He pressed a hand to his tie, smoothed it down.</p><p>She rolled her eyes. “I know what dress it is, you fucking asshole. Of course you’d pick that dress.”</p><p>“It’s a classic, baby.”</p><p>“Shut up. No. Don’t. I’ll be right back down.”</p><p>And she slammed the door in his face to the chuckle of the driver up front.</p><p>Well, that was fine. So long as she really did come downstairs.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kate Beckett crossed her legs in the backseat of the limo and the whole world stopped spinning.</p><p>He stared at the healthy length of leg, his skin constricting around his body, everything too ill-fitting, too close, too hot. Her foot bobbed and the black heel brushed his dress pants, just a wisp of contact that nevertheless had his groin tightening.</p><p>She had been back in the limo in something under twenty minutes, wearing the skintight purple dress with what had to be a push-up shelf bra (where and when the fuck had she purchased that, oh God) and these black chunky high heels that had sent his balls shriveling and his voice going high.</p><p>He still felt protective of his family jewels when her shoe touched his shin. Still felt the urge to cover himself with both hands and beg for mercy.</p><p>He had not, in any of his most lurid fantasies, expected her to actually wear that dress. He had assumed there would be a fucking intense and sexy fight, where he would heroically manhandle her through the apartment, force her to the closet to pick another choice because we will be going out for your birthday Beckett. And when she’d shoved him back inside the limo and told him to wait on her, he’d fully expected her to pull some kind of trick and return in sweats or pjs.</p><p>And well, that would have been fine too. He’d have taken her to Chinatown as planned and called Lady M to deliver the cake to her apartment; he had plans upon plans, contingencies piled on contingencies.</p><p>Not once had he planned for Kate Beckett to go through with this.</p><p>Now it seemed uncouth and ill-conceived to have this bombshell be handed out onto the streets of Chinatown for walk-up dumplings. This gorgeous, sleek, tempting seductress.</p><p>He was fucked, his plans were fucked, because he had nothing else.</p><p>Well, he had Lady M, right?</p><p>“Richard,” she purred, leaning away from him so her foot could nudge his shin. The rake of her heel was enough to have his cock jerking. “Where are you taking me?”</p><p>“I...” He couldn’t get words out of his throat. Couldn’t speak to save his fucking life. Or his balls. </p><p>Her knee knocked his, her long legs crossed and vividly thrust from the angle of her deep purple skirt, so deep a purple that it was nearly black, so deep a purple it looked wet.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>“Richard?” She caressed the top of her foot at the back of his calf and he wheezed. “Baby, you went to a lot of trouble for this. Can’t you give me a little hint?”</p><p>“Surprise,” he choked out. Surprise. Birthday. Birthday surprise. Holy fuck, she had put black lines around her eyes like kohl, like fucking Cleopatra, and her hair was a riot of waves, she must have done that all upstairs but he’d been so distracted by her legs in that miniskirt (it had looked like a regular fucking mid-thigh-length dress when he’d pulled it from her closet, what the fuck, fuck, fuck, her legs)—</p><p>“A surprise for my birthday, I got that, baby. You’re so cute when your mouth is hanging open like that. Where are we going, Richard.”</p><p>“Dinner,” he croaked. Cracked, sweating, everything too tight, straining, hot.</p><p>“You did promise dinner, yes, baby, I know. What I don’t know?” She leaned in now, her breasts pushed up against his arm, heavy and musk-sex-scented and perfect. Her fingers tapped at his thigh and traveled inside, made him squeak. “What I don’t know is where.”</p><p>“Special,” he whimpered. Was it special, he couldn’t remember, couldn’t grasp, wanted to grasp the breasts pressing so warm and ripe and lush at his arm but groping in a limo probably wasn’t copacetic with Officer Beckett.</p><p>He wheezed, breath coming in a rush as his brain fought to signal to his lungs. Breathe. Fuck. Breathe.</p><p>She pouted and sat back, arms crossed under her chest, lifting her breasts—</p><p>On purpose.</p><p>Fuck. Fuck, she was playing him and he knew that, he knew that, and yet his eyes were stuck to every movement she made, glued.</p><p>“You’re hot as fuck,” he croaked. “And I want to show you a damn good time.”</p><p>Her lips twitched. The pout slipped into something more gentle, something amused with him, and the nasty and noise of her seduction dulled to a blunt edge.</p><p>Oh, she liked it all right. She liked him and she only wanted to see him work for it.</p><p>He could fucking work for it.</p><p>-----</p><p>For some reason Beckett couldn't understand, the limo he rented turned left onto FDR instead of going over the Brooklyn Bridge like she had anticipated. She had reasoned they would be hitting up one of the hotspots in Brooklyn, of which there were too many to count (something of her inner Manhattan socialite snob came out to sneer when she thought of crossing any bridge off the island) but instead they were cruising the southeastern edge of Chinatown.</p><p>When the limo made a turn directly into the heart of Chinatown, she was truly confused. They had cut back towards the park, and she couldn't fathom why the limo had gone such a circuitous route if only to turn back around and park on the street, engine running. Castle scrambled out, holding open the door for her, and stuck his hand in as if to help her out.</p><p>She was in one of the shortest dresses she owned, which she'd bought for the occasional street work that Vice detectives put her up to, stiletto knee boots she'd unearthed from the bottom of her closet, and no wrap or sweater in the November chill. And they were getting out at Tasty Dumplings, a hole in the wall place she probably had never even seen before. </p><p>But she got out, because the eagerness on his face was almost enough to tie her up in knots, and because it was her damn birthday after all, and she was going to give him enough rope to at least hang himself.</p><p>He whistled appreciatively when she stood beside him. "You really do clean up good. Those shoes."</p><p>"Boots," she corrected.</p><p>"But they have a heel. Boots, sure. They make your legs go for miles, Beckett."</p><p>"Don't you dare rub your hands all over my legs on the sidewalk."</p><p>"Later then?"</p><p>She rolled her eyes but he was tugging her towards the Tasty Dumplings, holding open the glass front door. She could see where the security grill hadn't been pushed up all the way and it barely skimmed the top of the door. The bell jangled and with it came the scent of steamed cabbage and fried things redolent in the air.</p><p>"Come on," he cajoled, and she realized she was hesitating. "Best in the whole damn city, and this isn't our only stop."</p><p>He still had her hand as he approached the counter, in his fine sharp suit she hadn't even known he owned; the rest of the customers barely noticed their existence. In fact, the elderly black woman behind the counter barely noticed their existence either. Castle had to tap a bell to get her to the register and there he ordered for them. Three plates of dumplings and two Cokes.</p><p>She glanced around while the woman yelled the order back to the kitchen, which was open to the counter and filled with steam and shouting men. The whole place had that sense of antagonistic energy, eyes following, haughty looks, disdain. She wasn't cold though, the steam and the efforts of cooking wafting through the narrow dining space and the crooked plastic tables. Castle handed her a cold can of Coke and popped the top on his own, guzzled.</p><p>Well, if Richard the Spy Castle was going to drink Coke, she might as well. </p><p>——-</p><p>Castle had planned walk-up dumplings and the casual informal tone as a way to throw her off the scent of Lady M at the Plaza, but here she was in her tight-as-fuck dress and stiletto shoes--boots--and sucking soy sauce from her thumb as she moaned over a dinner that had literally cost him no more than five dollars. And that was because he'd gotten her seconds when it became clear one plate of five wasn't enough.</p><p>"Shit, these are good," she muttered. She rocked up on her toes and made her heels come down sharply on the cracked cheap tile. They'd been forced to stand at the counter, the place was so packed, not a table or chair left in sight, the two of the crushed together in the narrow space beside a trash can with its swinging door and odor of cabbage. He kept close to her to shield her from the touch of random strangers, innocent or not, and she kept making the noises that made his own touch not innocent at all.</p><p>She was eyeing the counter when he figured it was time to move on. "Come on. Another two stops."</p><p>"Two?"</p><p>"Progressive dinner, Beckett. Moveable feast. Come on."</p><p>She whined as he snagged the tiny styrofoam plate from her fingers and tossed it in the trash. "But I like this place. These are good. I don't think I've had dumplings so good before."</p><p>"You might have better. Come on." He took her by the hand even as she acquiesced, pitching the Coke can into the trash after his own. He got her out of the dense crowd of similar urban eaters and out onto the sidewalk.</p><p>"Where's the damn limo?" she groused. </p><p>"You can walk," he scoffed. "Good practice for Vice when they tap you for another assignment."</p><p>"You say assignment, I say freezing my ass off."</p><p>"I say entrapment, technically, but--"</p><p>"It's not entrapment," she hissed.</p><p>"Hey, hey, I surrender to the law. The long arm of the law. Or well, in your case, the long leg of the law. Do you wear those boots?"</p><p>"No," she grumbled, but she was walking with him, quick-time as they turned into the wind and went up the street. A fire station on their left met the block at this end, the door open and a bunch of the guys out in lawn chairs sitting in their shirt sleeves like Castle was wont to do. He glanced at her and saw her nasty look beamed across the street; not even 9/11 hero status spared them her glare as they flaunted the heat billowing at their backs with those FDNY t-shirts on.</p><p>"I should have told you to bring a coat," he stared.</p><p>"No," she snapped. Too quick, the kind that meant there was real emotion behind it somewhere. Over what, he had no idea. But something. Not being prepared, not being invincible, not being easy-going enough to take it? Hard to say. He'd have to file it away and think on it later.</p><p>He laced his fingers through hers and she allowed it, and they had to pause at the street corner to wait on the traffic. No light here, but the crosswalk was well-used and some were racing across as they saw a break. Kate didn't so much as lean out, so he stayed as he was until the street was empty.</p><p>They crossed with a cluster of people, some tourists who watched them as if they might possibly be famous, and Castle wasn't used to that. He wasn't the noticed type, and when he was, it was bad for business.</p><p>When the tourists had gone on ahead, she squeezed his hand, pressed her body close. "You look handsome in the suit, you know. That's why they keep looking back here."</p><p>"Me? No, I'm pretty sure they think you're someone famous."</p><p>"I'm pretty sure they think you are someone famous," she shot back. But she stayed close, as his body was cutting the wind, and her arm wound through his to keep her there. He was pleased with that, if surprised, but maybe her birthday was going to be a day of surprises. </p><p>Maybe her birthday was a chance to be different. A chance to be more.</p><p>"Hey, wait, are we heading here? Tasty Original Dumplings? Didn't we just--"</p><p>He broke into a grin, steered her to the open front of the walk-up dumpling place. No door at all, just a counter with its grill up and the scent of steamed dumplings pouring out over the sidewalk. "Yup. They're in fierce competition. Cousins, supposedly. Let's try them."</p><p>He ordered two plates of meat-filled and two plates of veggie, and he paid less than he had at the other. They were still standing, but this time, she parked against a light pole that had band stickers plastered all over it and he stood in front of her to block the wind. They sampled dumplings without the packet of soy sauce this time, the fresh soft wet dough slipping through their fingers, chasing them around the plate until they could get a grip on one. She took a careful bite and winced, mouth opening, hot hot as she waved her hand in front of her face.</p><p>He laughed and popped the whole thing in his while her eyes watered and she glared, the fresh dumplings searing the roof of her mouth but not his. He barely noticed. He ate two more of the veggie dumplings and inspected the contents of the middle, trying to identify what had been cooked inside. "These are better," he declared. "Tasty Original wins."</p><p>They were close enough to the walk-up that the heat from the kitchen wafted over them in varying degrees, buffets of warmth, but apparently they were also close enough for someone inside to have heard Castle's statement. It set off an alarm, a clanging bell and a whoop-whoop of a digital bullhorn, and the woman who had taken their order called loudly and adamantly for them to come back over. Castle rousted himself and headed for the counter where he was praised for wise decision and handed two more plates of five each, free of charge, while the woman made a big production. Since Kate was laughing behind her hand just a few steps away, he played nice and shook hands, but he was taken off guard when the elderly Chinese man came up from the boiling pot and threw an arm around his neck. The woman cackled and clapped and pulled out a camera, and then he was having his picture taken with the elderly man whose restaurant it was, and the little styrofoam plates were being jostled and he was about to lose it.</p><p>Kate deftly plucked the new plates from his hands, leaving him with the others, while the old woman air-dried the polaroid and talked loudly in pidgin. He caught a few of the Chinese words; she was so happy, she was thrilled he was such a distinguished customer, and then she said he was going up on the wall.</p><p>He watched, horrified, as his photo was tacked up behind the big steaming vats of dumplings, pressed into service with other helpless victims, a wall of faces.</p><p>Kate was laughing now, outright, no behind the hand stuff, no smirking, just laughing at the look on his face and holding their plates of dumplings and teasing him about all of it without saying a damn word.</p><p>And then the woman said you get together, get together, so pretty and Kate leaned in and pressed her cheek to his and the woman was taking another photo and this time when it spit out at the end of the camera, she took it carefully and handed it to Kate, who had to reach for it with her two littlest fingers while still juggling dumplings.</p><p>The old man said thank you and bowed and went back to his vats, and the woman already had more customers to serve, a whole line of them after that spectacle, and Kate tugged him aside to their out of the way lamp post. He took the two plates back from her so she could look at the photo, and they both bent their heads over the blank surface to watch it develop in the cold November light.</p><p>When their visages surfaced on the film, his heart went still.</p><p>She said nothing for a moment and then lifted her head and met his eyes. </p><p>Nothing needed to be said. It was a good picture of them. </p><p>-----</p><p>He had the photo tucked carefully in his suit jacket pocket, but he couldn't tell her that it wouldn't be something he could take with him. He didn't want to bring it up; he was hoping that later in the evening, she would pilfer it from his jacket and keep it for herself. He wanted it to be here with her, where she could prove to herself he was real.</p><p>Well, he had three months with her anyway, didn't he? He could avoid thinking about it for a while.</p><p>They walked to two more places and sampled fried dumplings, noodles, and little spring rolls that were heaven-sent. She moaned for the noodles, and he added it to his mental list of things that made Beckett sound like she was coming, fully intending to order a huge bowl of them for her on days he couldn't be in New York. If he wasn't here, she couldn't protest. He wondered if she would dump them in the trash on principle, or if she would give in and eat them if she resolved to never bring it up.</p><p>Wouldn't that be fun to see?</p><p>After they were both stuffed with Chinatown-style dinner, they walked to the FDR hand in hand, working off some of the over-full feeling as they strolled the blocks. She wandered from his side and came back each time, offering commentary on the pedestrians or reminding him of the hidden gems they'd discovered over their short times together. The cupcake place near the lingerie store, Remy's diner for their ever-changing burger menu--and their shakes, Castle!, and the Ethiopian place near one of her dad's regular bars where they'd eaten out a few times pretending they weren't waiting on the call. "Italian," she added. "The hole in the wall near my apartment. You found that one."</p><p>"You sent us to Brighton Beach for that deli with the rye sandwiches."</p><p>"I think you've picked up bagels and cream cheese there too. Ooh, what about the bakery that has the stuffed cookies? Castle, those are exquisite. Of course, the tourists found that place too, and now it's a mob. That's New York for you."</p><p>"I stood in line for you last time," he reminded her. "A few months ago. Those cookies are as big as my fist."</p><p>"Your fist," she said, taking his hand and wrapping hers around it, barely. "I mean, so good. Oh God, now I'm dying for a fat stuffed cookie."</p><p>He grinned. "Well..." He trailed off suggestively, letting his silence do the talking.</p><p>She grunted and elbowed him, glancing down the block to where the street intersected chaotically with the FDR. "You have dessert planned? Something more?"</p><p>"More," he said, nodding. "You ready?"</p><p>"Where are we going?"</p><p>"No."</p><p>"Come on. Tell me."</p><p>He shook his head and glanced at his watch. They were nearly perfect with their timing.</p><p>In fact, at that moment, the limo pulled out of traffic on FDR and smoothly began its approach. Kate startled to a stop and twisted on her heel to look at him.</p><p>"You carriage awaits," he said, gesturing to the limo as it eased into a standing only space at the curb.</p><p>"You fucking asshole. You have something big going on."</p><p>"No."</p><p>"You do," she said. Something  like dread went through her eyes and she refused to move.</p><p>"You scared of a little something big?"</p><p>Her nostrils flared. Instead of answering, she pivoted for the limo in a flare of temper, but the driver had already exited and was holding open the back door for them. She capitulated to the man's service, offered a mostly-gracious thank you, and handed herself into the backseat.</p><p>He followed after, sliding across the smooth leather to be close because he knew she was still chilled. The driver got back in after a lull in traffic and then the limo was pulling out and heading northward again.</p><p>She was rigid beside him for all of a minute, and then suddenly she snaked her hand over his inside thigh--nearly at his groin--and began playing, as if idly, with the loose material of his slacks.</p><p>He did not actually have that much loose material; it was mostly her nails running perilously close the bulge in his pants and her face turning to him in the traffic-light-streaked darkness with that sultry command that always made him want to obey.</p><p>"Where are we going, Richard?"</p><p>He cleared his throat and doggedly shook his head, and she began to wage war on his body.</p><p>----- </p><p>“This was a good surprise,” she murmured to him.</p><p>“Wasn’t a surprise,” he laughed. “You tortured that information out of me, Beckett.”</p><p>She tilted her head as they sat close, lamplight from the table casting her hair with the illusion of summer highlights. He couldn’t help reaching up and taking a section of her hair in his fingers, brushing the choppy ends against his thumb.</p><p>“Tortured?” she mused. “No. Just helpfully-”</p><p>“-helpfully?”</p><p>She inclined her head and he was seriously going to have to do something about the playfully shy smirk on her face. </p><p>“Just making sure you weren’t doing something stupid,” she said finally, still grinning.</p><p>Castle leaned forward, cupping the side of her face in warning, and he brought his mouth to hers. She tasted sweet like the strawberry shortcake they'd had for dessert, and her tongue came out to dart along his lips, little touches that made his cock stir.</p><p>When she broke away from him without letting him get deeper, he frowned.</p><p>She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth and cast him a hot look. </p><p>Oh, now he got it. </p><p>Castle grinned and leaned forward, pushing aside the narrow table inside the empty Lady M bakery inside the hotel. Her knees were sharp angles sticking out from under her dress, and he rubbed the tops of her thighs with his thumbs, fingers in the crease behind her legs.</p><p>“Baby, I got us a room upstairs.” </p><p>Her face blanked.</p><p>He paused, realized how that had sounded. “Ah, I mean that in the most respectful way possible, Kate. But I wasn’t sure I could walk out of the Plaza’s front doors in this state.”</p><p>“This state,” she echoed softly.</p><p>“Fucking hard,” he growled. “And no, I don’t mean that respectfully. I want to do some fucking dirty things to you tonight, and I thought it would be a good idea to take you away for it.”</p><p>“You can do dirty things to me in my bedroom, you know.”</p><p>“Already have,” he said, crooked smile lifting his face. More than just wanting to have her as soon as possible, he’d gotten the sick-in-his-guts premonition that Jim Beckett wasn’t going to show up for dessert tonight.</p><p>And he hadn’t.</p><p>But he’d wanted a way to chase all those birthday thoughts out of her mind, keep her from dwelling on all the ways her birthday wasn’t what it should have been.</p><p>“Hmm,” Kate mused. She shifted her legs and crossed one over the other, knocking his hands away from her. He was momentarily blinded by the reveal of shadows between her legs, the promise and allure of paradise if only he could reach it.</p><p>“What?” he scraped out.</p><p>“I have a shift tomorrow,” she started, but the way she drew it out had already let him know.</p><p>She wanted this too.</p><p>“I packed you a bag,” he admitted.</p><p>“You did what?”</p><p>“It’s in the room.” He braced himself for it but it never came. Instead, Beckett was uncrossing her legs and suddenly standing, hiking up the tight skirt of her dress with both hands and stepping into his legs.</p><p>He sat back, stunned by her nearness, and Beckett raised one foot and settled it beside his hip, then straddled his lap in a gracefully effortless move.</p><p>She ground her crotch against his, her hands clutching the back of the chair, her breasts rubbing his chest. “I could go for that.”</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>“You up for it?”</p><p>“Have--have been,” he croaked.</p><p>“Then go check us in, baby. I’m so wet I might need you to touch me in the elevator.”</p><p>----- </p><p>She stood behind him in the elevator, breathing hard at his ear, so tall in her shoes that she was at just the perfect height.</p><p>The perfect height for him to inch up her skirt. He had crossed his arms behind his back and stood exactly in front of her, hiding her body from the security camera in the corner, and he slid his fingers up her inside thigh as her hot breath panted against his neck.</p><p>She gave a little moan as he dusted his fingers between her legs and then the doors opened.</p><p>“Fuck,” she cursed.</p><p>He let her skirt drop and took her hand instead, drew her off the elevator. Beckett was striding down the hallway in those high heels, her calves sharply defined, her legs miles long in her skimpy dress. He caught up with her at 1847, used a little sleight of hand to slip the key card into place.</p><p>Beckett didn’t even give him a chance to flirt with her outside the door, rev her up a little more, before she was gripping him by his tie and yanking him inside with her.</p><p>“Where were we?” she said with a catlike gleam. Her eyes were feral and fixed on his mouth and he chuckled and clamped his hands on her hips to spin her around.</p><p>“What are you doing?” she growled, trying to twist in his arms.</p><p>“I know it’s not the penthouse, baby, but it’s a damn nice room. I want you to see it.”</p><p>Kate went still, and Castle came up at her back, draping his body over hers. She lifted her hand and rubbed her palm over the scruff that had grown up since this morning’s shave; her body was soft and lithe in his arms.</p><p>“You got me a really nice room, Castle,” she murmured. “This is expensive. We’re on the 18th floor.”</p><p>He grinned and brushed his smile against her skin, licked the taut cord of her neck as she turned her head to survey the place. It was a small suite, with the sitting room opening up to three floor-to-ceiling windows draped in brocade. He knew the bedroom was just beyond the open door, heavy damask carpeting and a sette before the bed, everything richly appointed and tastefully arranged.</p><p>Kate drew his arms around her waist and stroked his forearms, tugged him after her towards the windows.</p><p>“Finger fuck me right here,” she said throatily. “Like you wanted to in the elevator. Where everyone can see if they only looked up.”</p><p>Castle cursed and crowded her up against the glass, the brush of the heavy curtains making his skin raw. He shifted one hand up to palm her breast and the other down to find the short hem of her skirt.</p><p>She let out a shaky breath and dipped her forehead to the glass, fogging it up.</p><p>He scraped his teeth along her neck. “You like it when you might get caught?”</p><p>She shivered. </p><p>“You want me to expose you, Kate? Lift your dress up so that it’s bunched under your breasts and your beautiful thighs are on display?”</p><p>She moaned and her heartbeat picked up hard; he could feel it against his arm where he was caressing her breast. She shifted her thighs wider and he took that as a yes, skimmed her dress to her belly.</p><p>“Oh, baby,” he groaned. “Black lace.”</p><p>“It’s slitted,” she told him. Her voice was weak, like she couldn’t keep herself together. And he hadn’t even touched her.</p><p>“Slitted where, sweetheart?”</p><p>“Where it matters,” she muttered, rolling her cheek against the glass as if to cool herself off. Her chin was a stark angle against the city lights outside the window and he leaned in and bit the jut of her jaw. It crushed her body against the glass, pinning his arms in place, and Kate brought her palms up and unfurled her fingers against the window as if to hang on.</p><p>“In the front and the back?” he hummed, sliding the dress up to his other arm. He tucked the material in around his wrist so that he could continue to knead her breast, and Kate’s hips danced back into his groin.</p><p>“Yeah,” she admitted. “But you won’t do that to me.”</p><p>“Not yet,” he admonished, licking the line of her neck. “Because this is just so good, baby. When we need it, we’ll have it. And not before. Everything in its time.”</p><p>“I really need you to touch me now,” she ground out. Her hips were rubbing back against his and he let his fingers slide down her belly, the skin cold where it’d been pressed to the window.</p><p>“Can they see us?” he hummed in her ear. “Can they tell you’re about to have a fucking amazing orgasm right in front of them.”</p><p>She whined and he slipped his fingers down the lacy line of her panties, felt the heat of her through the material. She bucked her hips up to meet his hand, but he hovered there, keeping it under his control.</p><p>“Please,” she whimpered. “I need you to touch me.” Her eyes flared open, staring over her shoulder at him, and he leaned in and took the corner of her mouth where he could reach her, shoving his tongue inside brutally. </p><p>Kate moaned and writhed against the window, shoving herself onto his hand so that the harsh lace scraped her sex. Her mewling, her needy thrusts conspired to make him lose it, and he plunged his fingers through the slit of her panties.</p><p>She gasped and jerked up on her toes, her heels gouging his shins as she felt the invasion of his hand. He pushed her wide open with two fingers and thumbed her clit at the same time, working her ruthlessly.</p><p>Kate scratched her nails against the glass and pressed her face to the window, her hips bucking hard in his hand. She opened her mouth and the steam bloomed across the glass; Castle leaned into her body so she could feel his cock under the material of his dress pants and right at her ass.</p><p>“Oh,” she gasped. “Please. Please. Make it harder.”</p><p>He spread his fingers inside her and she cried out, curling in and out again as if she couldn’t control the movement of her body. He hooked his fingers and made a harsh withdrawal, only to plunge back inside her cunt with his thumb crushing her clit.</p><p>Kate moaned and dissolved around him, her orgasm beating out waves of heat and juice so that his hand was drenched and her thighs coated in it. He pumped into her without pause, felt the moment when her first orgasm collapsed and rolled over into a second, and she was slamming her knees into the glass and coming frantically, an element of desperation to it that made him so fucking hard.</p><p>She writhed in his arms and jerked away, turning in the window to throw herself at him. Her hands were fast and deadly, ripping down his zipper and reaching inside for his cock. She attacked his mouth with her teeth and sucked on his lip, thrust her tongue inside. He found her ass in his hands and kneaded the black lace, her dress bunched up at her breasts.</p><p>She moaned as she palmed his cock; her head went back as if touching him went straight through to her core. He ached to be inside her, wanted to feel that same double orgasm flood through her from inside.</p><p>“Now, Beckett,” he growled, sucking on the column of her throat. He kneaded her ass and separated her cheeks, caressed the soft pucker of her hole with his fingers until she was shaking.</p><p>She dragged his cock out of his boxers, shoved his pants down just far enough, and then she hiked her leg up around his waist and sank down on him.</p><p>It was agony. She went slowly and kept clutching her inward muscles, pushing and pulling on his cock with her cunt. He groaned and dropped his head to her shoulder, bowed over her body as she worked to get him seated.</p><p>She widened her thighs and he pushed all the way home.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She was moaning into his mouth with every thrust, her body shimmering around him as if he couldn’t quite hold her. Beneath her noises he caught the squeak of the window panes in their frame, and he tried to ease up.</p><p>Kate’s legs tightened around him and she growled, her eyes snapping open to stare at him, dark and dangerous. “Don’t you dare.”</p><p>“Taking this to the bed.”</p><p>“What? Your orgasm too good for standing in the window?”</p><p>Castle groaned and sank down into her, pressing her body hard to the glass. She groaned with him and arched into his cock.</p><p>“Fuck.”</p><p>“Exactly,” she rasped.</p><p>Castle gave it up, slammed his hips into her and hoped the window held up. Kate cried out and grasped his ear, working her body up into his, writhing. She felt so damn good against him, around him, and he thrust again, going deeper.</p><p>The window rattled and she moaned, the glass seemed to bow beneath the force of his need, ramming his cock inside her again and again. His orgasm was starting, that twisting snake coiled around his spine that flared in his legs and gripped his balls. He needed to come, he wanted to bury himself to the hilt inside her strong, willing body, bury himself so deep that she could never be anyone else’s.</p><p>He growled a curse as he worked his hips, crushing his chest against hers and opening his mouth at her neck. She mewled and he tasted it; she panted against his ear and it pushed jolts of electricity straight to his cock.</p><p>She cried out and seized around him, her contractions milking his erection so tightly that he couldn’t hold out.</p><p>Castle jetted hot and sticky inside her, filling her so full that he felt it run back down her thighs and coat his belly, a viscous and demanding proof of his need.</p><p>Kate was gasping at his ear, her body still shaking, one of her legs on the floor while the other seemed hooked over his hip. She mewled and tried to climb his body, and finally Castle got his feet under him and turned them towards the bed.</p><p>Kate stuttered every breath and gripped his neck with an arm, hiding her face against his skin.</p><p>He laid her down with more care than he should probably ever reveal to her, but he couldn’t help it. She was still trembling with aftershocks and wrung out, and he wanted to love her, always, wanted to crawl into bed over her and place his body between her and the world.</p><p>Kate twined her arms around his torso and clung to him, her nose nuzzling along his jaw.</p><p>“Thank you for dinner, for dessert, but most especially for the Plaza,” she murmured. “No one has ever...”</p><p>Castle kissed her before she could tell him too much and have to revert to type just to prove something she no longer had to prove. He loved her; he would take any of her, all of her, whatever she could offer.</p><p>And everything she couldn’t. He would take that too, because he knew she wanted to, because he was the only man who could.</p><p>She slid her tongue into his mouth and stroked, and already his cock was growing hard for her.</p><p>-----</p><p>There was something inevitable about them.</p><p>Something inevitable and consuming. Something that didn’t allow for anything else. There was no room for his fucking ego or his mission stats, no room for daddy issues or rebellious streaks. There was his body meeting hers. There was her wet cunt opening like a mouth and swallowing him down until he was engulfed.</p><p>He never wanted to swim to the surface. </p><p>Castle sunk down inside her and rocked his hips, felt the slow drag of her sex around his cock. She groaned and widened her thighs, her head thrown back and her neck arched. He lowered his mouth and sucked on the hard ridge of cartilage at her throat, felt her inner muscles contract around him in response.</p><p>He did it again and she mewled, her hands digging into his shoulders. Castle nipped at her throat and caught his teeth on her collarbone, and Kate cried out and bucked up into him, her eyes flaring open.</p><p>“Rick,” she gasped. “Rick. Please. Please I need-”</p><p>He ground his pelvis into her cunt and she shuddered out into orgasm, crying his name into his ear as if she couldn’t help it. He worked her release with slow strokes, making sure to hit her clit with every thrust, and he could feel her winding up again, feel the way her climax plateaued and then slowly curled up again.</p><p>Kate let out a moan and he slid his palm down her thigh, hooked his arm under her knee to bring her leg up to his shoulder. He pushed deeper and she cried out, and now her body writhed out of sync with his, her desperation making her wild. She dug her nails into his back, strangled his neck with her arm, slammed herself up to meet him.</p><p>“Rick.”</p><p>“Baby, I got you,” he assured her. “I got you, you don’t have to force it.”</p><p>“I can’t - can’t stand - can’t-”</p><p>“You can, love, you can. One more for me.”</p><p>She ground her teeth and pressed her cheek hard into his, crushing their bones together, and he could feel every fierce grip of her cunt around him as she struggled in the clutch of another approaching orgasm.</p><p>Sometimes he could make her come over and over, like a string of them, daisy chained and intense and gorgeous so that by the end of it, she was entirely pliant. He could do anything to her like that, anything at all, and the rest of the night her orgasms would bloom over her like a wave coming in.</p><p>“Rick, please,” she begged. “Please make me come.”</p><p>“I got you,” he whispered, skimming a kiss along her nose.</p><p>“Please,” she whimpered.</p><p>“Don’t you know I always take care of you?” he murmured, dusting a light kiss to the side of her nose. He kept his thrusts slow but deep, his shoulder pressed behind her knee so that she was broken wide to him. She kept trying to claw up into him, but he stayed just like this, just this speed, wouldn’t let either of them fuck.</p><p>Just love.</p><p>“Rick, I need you,” she cried. “I need you. Baby, please.”</p><p>He sealed their mouths together and stroked his tongue inside, and she shattered on an orgasm so brilliant that he couldn’t hold back.</p><p>His release burst open, his come jetting so hard that his cock pulsed with it, a long rope that felt pulled right out of his guts.</p><p>Castle collapsed on top of her and buried his face into the honey-sweet scent of her hair, trying to find himself again.</p><p>But he was lost.</p><p>-----</p><p>-----</p><p>Kate Beckett had no idea what she was doing with this man.</p><p>She’d stopped trying to pretend he was a hot guy she’d found in her bed, stopped telling herself that she didn’t have to have him.</p><p>She had to have him.</p><p>And with his body sprawled over hers in that way she’d always hated from other guys, she didn’t want to think too much about why.</p><p>Rick dragged a hand up her ribs and cupped her breast, a grunt from his chest as he did, like he was surprised to find her there. She curled her arm around his neck and turned her head into the dark place between his cheek and shoulder.</p><p>He smelled like strawberry shortcake and sex, and her heart was still pounding a little overtime.</p><p>He felt so good; she had no idea how she’d managed to get this lucky. One day a soldier had followed her onto the subway and watched her like she was a rare animal in the wild and her whole body had tightened and burned to feel him.</p><p>And she wouldn’t admit it, but there was something about them together. Something inevitable and consuming, something raw. </p><p>When his cock penetrated her - and what else could it be called but penetration? - when his cock stabbed her cunt it was like a wound every time. A wound in the heart of her, a wound that was flaying the scar tissue she’d built up around the deepest hurt, that dark grief.</p><p>If she wasn’t careful, sex with Agent Castle was going to destroy her. </p><p>His fingers circled her breast and his thumb raked her nipple. She felt the pleasure ripple under her skin and she wanted to reciprocate but she didn’t have the strength.</p><p>He hummed and licked behind her ear and Kate laughed, breathless with the shot of arousal that tumbled through her. His teeth scraped her skin but he shifted and the still working contractions of her cunt pushed out his cock. Castle groaned at the loss and seemed to curl around her, and she felt the emptiness again, the gaping mouth of her sex that wanted only to have him.</p><p>She just wanted to have him. All the time. Permanently embed his cock so that she was never without him.</p><p>Fuck, no. She had to get over this. </p><p>“You’re making me sentimental,” she muttered at his ear. “All this romantic shit for my birthday.”</p><p>Castle laughed and drew his arm around her neck, shifted them both to their sides. “Baby, if you’re calling it romantic, I’ve done something right. Feels like all I’ve been doing tonight is angling for a way into your pants.”</p><p>Beckett laughed in response, her body easing into his. “Yeah, that’s romance to me - all I need. Fuck me a little and I’m yours,” she murmured, batting her eyelashes even though he couldn’t see her.</p><p>“Better be. I bought you cake and this nice room. Better be mine.”</p><p>“Mmm, until I get a better offer, you got me.”</p><p>“Then I will make it my life’s work to see that mine is the only offer,” he growled in her ear, nipping with his teeth over and over so that she laughed, squirming against him. His fingers were teasing the back of her thigh, skimming close to the dark heat between her legs, completely distracting her.</p><p>He’d said something about making it his life’s work to be her only offer, but fuck if she cared right now. His fingers trailed the curve of her ass and she kissed his mouth for it, laved his bottom lip with her tongue.</p><p>Castle immediately shifted closer. “Fuck, you ready, baby?”</p><p>“Always ready to be fucked,” she hummed, shifting a knee up to his thigh to give him room to work. </p><p>He growled something dirty about her ass and she felt his thumb skate over her cunt, collecting her cream. She shivered and he was painting her arousal along the cheeks of her ass, passing over the pucker of her muscle.</p><p>“Rick,” she moaned. “I really want you there.”</p><p>“I’m here,” he rasped. “Already here.”</p><p>She wanted his cock, wanted him to force his way into the smallest part of her, but he kept resisting. Made it hotter, somehow, made it wrong and nasty and so fucking thrilling that just his fingers teasing her ass made her cunt contract.</p><p>“Ffffuck,” she groaned.</p><p>“Yeah, love.”</p><p>“You’re - ah, Castle, fuck - you’re doing this - this on purpose,” she panted at his ear.</p><p>“Could be.”</p><p>“Why are you so-” She moaned at the nudge of his thumb inside her cunt, barely there, too shallow, but her whole body clamped down, reaching for more.</p><p>“Just imagine what it will feel like when I finally fuck you there,” he whispered.</p><p>“Oh, please-”</p><p>“Imagine how hot you’ll be for me, how delicious the anticipation. Imagine how much you’ll want to me to spread your ass and shove inside you.”</p><p>“Fuck. Fuck, Castle. Castle, I can’t-”</p><p>“You can. You can.”</p><p>She dragged in a breath, another, but she couldn’t seem to catch up to her pounding heart. His fingers teased and skimmed, stroked the skin around her anus.</p><p>“Just - just put it in a little. Just-”</p><p>The wide head of his middle finger penetrated her ass.</p><p>Kate cried out and jerked hard into his body, clutching him with her arms and leg, feverish with need.</p><p>“Yeah, love, and that’s just one finger.”</p><p>She heard the sounds coming out of her mouth but couldn’t stop them, couldn’t keep them back. She felt like she was going to shake apart, felt like she couldn’t ever get herself back together again.</p><p>And then his thumb pushed inside her cunt and he had her hooked. Kate gasped, eyes wide, breath escaping her.</p><p>“Anyone ever shock you before, baby?”</p><p>“Sh-shock-”</p><p>“Penetrate you like this, grab hold.”</p><p>“Fuck,” she groaned, dipping her forehead to his chin and breathing hard. She palmed the side of face and felt his words as he seduced her.</p><p>“I’m the only one, Kate. I can tell by the way you move against my hand. Uncontrolled, unskilled-”</p><p>“Un-fucking-skilled, fuck, I-”</p><p>“Shh, it’s good, baby.” His lips brushed her inside wrist and then his finger and thumb gripped her inside.</p><p>Her orgasm ripped through her body like thunder, and she found herself humping his hand for every last fucking amazing feeling until she couldn’t even breathe.</p><p>He kissed her for the last of it, his tongue fucking her mouth like his cock wouldn’t, and she was done. She was done.</p><p>Her birthday would never ever be this good again.</p><p>-----</p><p>He wondered what she was thinking.</p><p>Death knell to his independence, and he knew it, but he still wondered what she was thinking. </p><p>He'd tucked her down against his chest and she had one of her legs tangled between his, her skin warm, sweat-sheened. She smelled of honey and he didn't know whether that was a real thing or if his love-soaked brain was telling him that's how it was just to bask in the afterglow, but either way, she was lickable.</p><p>So he did, of course. She shivered and her breath caught, fingers curling around his bicep so that her thumb pushed under his armpit as if to hold on through it. He touched his tongue to the corner of her eye where he tasted salt and he wondered again if she'd cried in the bathroom of the restaurant right before they had left.</p><p>Had she wondered if her father was going to make it? Had she hoped for it despite Castle keeping his mouth shut on what he'd done? Maybe she had read his face despite his best attempt to mask it, maybe she had seen him cast a few glances towards the door in expectation.</p><p>He kept forgetting how vulnerable she was, how her life was such a mess in some ways, nothing working right. When they were together, they both ignored the real world and subsumed every problem and feeling in the body of the other. She was just Beckett, Kate, the woman who drove him crazy and made him think about her entirely too much, the woman who was up for anything and wanted more.</p><p>And what was he to her? The CIA's assassin? One more cog in the machine? </p><p>Or a love machine? </p><p>He cracked on a grin and she shifted, lifting her chin to him. "What?"</p><p>"Nothing," he chuckled to himself, wiping it away. "Thinking about how you taste."</p><p>She snorted and laid her head back down on his chest, but he'd broken the spell. She was withdrawing an arm into herself and now her knee was shifting.</p><p>He hurried to recapture the post-coital bliss, wanted to keep her against him, lay her warm body out alongside his, every point of contact. "Wondering if I'll ever get used to it. If you'll stop surprising me."</p><p>"Surprising you?" she muttered. Her chin tucked down so that he couldn't see any of her face at all.</p><p>"Tonight it's been salt and cream, like strawberry dessert drizzled with honey. I had something like that in Turkey once."</p><p>"Turkey."</p><p>"It's good. And I just wondered if every time my tongue touched your body, would it be different?"</p><p>"Shit," she muttered, and he felt the flame of her cheek against his skin.</p><p>"At least now I get to find out," he murmured. He had his own flame and he couldn't stop from spilling it out. "I've been put on probation. Three months for the fuck-up in Ireland."</p><p>Kate lifted her head and studied him, but not in the way he'd expected. She was closing down, shutting it off, walling off. He didn't understand why. She pushed off against his chest and sat up, the sheet spilling around her. Castle couldn't resist pressing his fingers to her hip and smoothing up along her ribs so that her skin shivered.</p><p>Instead of lying down again, accepting the unspoken invitation for more, she sat back. "Did you - you've been reassigned?"</p><p>Oh, that's what worried her? "Yeah," he grinned. "New York. On probation means no posting overseas."</p><p>"New York?" she exclaimed, sitting up completely now, turning away from him.</p><p>"Yeah, baby. Happy Birthday. Three months here in the city. No more back and forth and shitty phone calls and not knowing where I am."</p><p>She shifted and put her feet on the floor like she was going to stand up and leave. He sat up with her, his body already hot for her, radiating heat, and she seemed to sway towards him, her own skin pebbling with goose bumps.</p><p>But then Kate shook her head and stood, heading swiftly into the bathroom, finding a shirt along the way.</p><p>It was his shirt, and he sat there, an arm hooked around his raised knee, wondering what was going on now, what he'd missed. He heard the toilet flush and the water running, and he knew the frown line between his eyes was carving ever deeper, so he rubbed both hands over his face and tried to erase it.</p><p>Beckett didn't do well with point-blank concern.</p><p>She came back out of the bathroom with her arms crossed over her chest, wearing his shirt, and she was biting her bottom lip and not quite making eye contact. "Someone's got to - the dog," she said. "Speaking of being in the city, right? The dog will have to go out."</p><p>She gave a forced little chuckle and then he fucking realized what the fuck he'd done.</p><p>Hey, Kate, I know you can't stand to think of yourself as beholden to anyone, so here's a dog that requires you to be tied down, and by the way, I'm staying glued to your side for the next three months. Happy Birthday!</p><p>"Dog's fine," he said shortly. "Cujo went out before we left for dinner. Plus, you're usually in to work by 6:30, so I'll leave you at the subway and head to your place to let him out."</p><p>If he emphasized your place a little much, or if he told her he was assuming their idyll in the Plaza was no reason to be late to work, it was only because she was stiff as a board and radiating don't touch me.</p><p>So he touched her.</p><p>Castle reached out a hand and caught her elbow, rubbed his thumb over the skin just under the sleeve of his undershirt. "Just think, baby. Three months of booty calls at any time of the day. No more phone sex that isn't the same as having your hands on me. You could call me and I'd could meet you at the CIA crash pad at noon for a hard fuck and call it a lunch break."</p><p>She was relenting, easing into the role of 'fuck buddy' just as she always had. She could say so much with her body, with the way she touched him, with her mouth on him. But it just couldn't be words in her mouth.</p><p>Castle tugged her a little until she was sitting back down on the mattress. "Doesn't that sound ideal? And think of all the kinky things we could try, baby." He'd rather call her 'love' or 'sweetheart' because he used 'baby' for everyone and everything in the field, but she responded to it for that fact alone. She knew it meant nothing, less than, and it comforted her to think she was still in control of this.</p><p>Oh, sweetheart, neither of us are.</p><p>"New things to try?" she murmured, turning her head toward him.</p><p>"All kinds of things. I bet you know things I've never even heard of, working with those fucking assholes in the Academy. Like one big guys' locker room, isn't it?"</p><p>She laughed then, smirking at him, capturing the sound quickly before it could be called either light or happy. Just dark, a little embittered perhaps, definitely arousing.</p><p>"Three months of as much fucking as we can possibly stand," he grinned, wriggling his eyebrows for effect. "You with me?"</p><p>"Mmm."</p><p>"Yes, more noises just like that," he growled, leaning in and taking a bruising kiss from her mouth. She opened for him faster than he'd expected, like they had both agreed upon the baser fantasy to hide the truth of things from her own heart. Duplicitous together, weaving anti-fairy tales so that she didn't hope for too much.</p><p>Fuck, he wanted to give her hope. He wanted to fill her up with hope. </p><p>For now he'd have to fill her with his cock until the two were synonymous. Until she started believing again.</p><p>Until he could actually make her promises he could keep.</p><p>Castle dragged the shirt off over her head and lowered his mouth to her bare, cool breasts. She arched and slid a leg over his lap, settled her sex against his hip bone, grinding herself on him.</p><p>I love you, he told her with his tongue. I love you, he painted with his fingers.</p><p>I love you, he insisted, pushing inside of her before she was even ready.</p><p>Kate cried out and clutched him, their foreheads crashing together, and he worked his way deeper and deeper, demanding entry, acceptance. Demanding a place.</p><p>If she had to be unmade to allow him there, then he was going to damn well unmake her.</p><p>----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He liked it when she laid on top of him, boneless and replete and undemanding. He liked combing his fingers through the soft, straight hair and arranging it to frame her face or line her jaw. She didn’t try to stop him, and she didn’t start anything either, which meant she’d been fucked a little too hard tonight, he thought.</p><p>She was awake, he knew that much, but one of her arms was looped around his waist and the other was under her shoulder to keep her balanced on him. He could feel her eyelashes from time to time, moth kisses against his skin, and she would press her lips together or move her mouth, issue a heavy sigh or rub her nose at his sternum like she was just settling in.</p><p>Waiting.</p><p>He should have waited to push inside her until she was ready for him. Even if she liked it rough, he wasn’t looking to make her raw. Not when they had a room at the Plaza all night. But of course if he suggested taking it easy, she’d have to prove herself, attack him like a she-wolf and fuck herself on his cock. And he’d do it - how in the world could he help himself? - but tomorrow morning would be miserable for her. </p><p>He also didn’t want to make her bleed. He thought - well, that time when he’d sneaked back into the States and found her at home for once and they’d fucked on top of one of the dryers in her building, just for the thrill of it. He’d made her bleed then; when he’d gone to clean up, he’d found it on his cock, little streaks, but he knew she hadn’t been on her period.</p><p>Shit, he didn’t want to do that again. He’d wondered what to say to her about it, but in the end he just had left. Gone back out. But he’d gotten her a dog, right? His sorry ass had left her with a dog. It wasn’t the same as actually being a good man for her, it wouldn’t replace actual care and follow-through.</p><p>Commitment.</p><p>She was going to be picking up her drunk father for the foreseeable future, and she did not need one extra asshole not caring enough about her to step it up and stop being a dick.</p><p>Shit. Shit. He was going to do this right.</p><p>“Stop thinking,” she muttered into his chest.</p><p>He let out a breath, stroked his fingers down her neck and through her hair, circled her shoulder. “Yes, ma’am.”</p><p>“You get tense.”</p><p>“I do?” She knew him that well? “Huh, you’d think after those last few rounds I wouldn’t have the capacity for tension.”</p><p>She huffed a little laugh and he inhaled the scent of sex still steaming between their bodies. Warm and rich. She smelled differently every time, too. Not just taste, but her body’s scent. Maybe it was times of the month, maybe it was food she’d eaten, he had no idea. But right now, in the sumptuous surrounding of the Plaza, it was the musk of worn-out perfume and the tang of heavy arousal.</p><p>Castle kissed the top of her head where he could reach and the he cupped her shoulder, drawing his other arm around her. “How was your birthday?”</p><p>“So far?” she murmured. Not coy, just tired. He promised himself - and her - no more for a few hours. “Oh, wait, is it past midnight?”</p><p>“Think so,” he said. He knew it was.</p><p>“Well, it was a really - surprising birthday. I didn’t - never expected this, Castle. Thank you.”</p><p>It was on his lips to say any excuse to fuck you someplace new and dismiss the sentiment out of hand, but he paused. And instead said, “You’re welcome. I should have done more. I wanted to do more. You deserve more - flowers, gifts, poetry.”</p><p>She snorted. “You’re plenty poetic when I’ve got my hands on your cock. Good enough for me.”</p><p>“Oh?” he laughed. He kinda liked that. “I’m not even sure what I’m saying. Especially with your mouth on me.”</p><p>She turned her face into his chest, let her teeth scrape his nipple - love bite or something because she didn’t follow it up with more. “It is, actually, kinda... pretty.”</p><p>“Pretty?”</p><p>“You put words together, Castle, that are - yeah. Pretty. I like to hear it.”</p><p>“You do?” he murmured. His smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “I could do that. Write you pornographic poetry for your birthday. Roses are red, so are your lips when I suck on them.”</p><p>She laughed, a startled sound, and she lifted her chin to look at him. “But that doesn’t rhyme.” </p><p>“Don’t hold me back with rhyme. I’m free verse, baby. I go where I want. Like this - the valley between your legs becomes a canyon with my fingers’ erosion. Let me dam you up, let me flood your fertile crescent.”</p><p>She stared at him; he felt the terrible sensation of saying too much, not enough, not right. None of those were the right words, but fuck, did it feel good to adore her.</p><p>Even crassly.</p><p>“Yeah,” she murmured. Her eyes traveled over his face and down to his lips, and then her fingers touched his mouth. “I like that. Poetry.”</p><p>Fuck. She was going to kill him - slowly - wondrous, sad, sorry life it was; she was going to unmake him before he ever got a chance to do her.</p><p>-----</p><p>“I’m hungry,” she complained, scooting out of the way of his reach. “No, wait. I’ll fuck you later. I’m starving, Richard.”</p><p>He grunted and shook his head, lunging forward to snag her by the ankle as she tried to crawl off the bed. She tugged, throwing a look to him over her shoulder, but he dragged her back towards him, wrapping his arm around her waist and wrestling her into him.</p><p>“Let me go. I wanna order room service.”</p><p>“Room service,” he growled, nipping at her neck. </p><p>She wriggled and caught his thigh with her heel, kicked away from him. He laughed and watched her jump triumphantly to her feet.</p><p>“Using my moves against me, Beckett?”</p><p>“Hell, yeah. That’s what they’re for.” But she winked and sashayed towards the main room, teasing him with the sway of her ass. </p><p>Castle followed, scooping his boxer briefs from the floor as Kate shrugged on his t-shirt again. Gone was the closed-off, walled-up woman who had been leaving him to go tend to a damn dog. The Beckett who was biting her bottom lip as she tossed come hither looks over her shoulder at him seemed to really enjoy this.</p><p>“What are you ordering?” he asked, watching her snag the menu and study it.</p><p>“Mm, dessert.” Her hair had fallen in front of her face and she lifted an eyebrow at him, tucked the hair back with a finger. “Want some?”</p><p>He laughed again. “We just had dessert.”</p><p>“Baby, it’s my birthday. Dessert is kind of a non-stop thing on your birthday. Didn’t you ever just eat like your whole cake?”</p><p>“What?” he chuckled. “You seriously ate a whole cake on your birthday?”</p><p>“Once when I was eight. Big mistake. But spread it out over the whole day, and you won’t get a stomach ache. And ice cream. Strawberry cake and cookies and cream ice cream. The best. What about you?”</p><p>“I liked your strawberry cake, yeah. Not a big ice cream person.”</p><p>She lifted her head again, laughed at him. “Not a big ice cream... oh you’re serious. I guess you don’t eat much dessert at all, with that body.” She gave him a little frown, her nose wrinkling. “And your father. I guess he’s not cool with ice cream. But I meant, what about your birthday?”</p><p>Castle sank down into the armchair, propped his chin in his hand to watch her. She kept going up on her toes like she was excited, and her hair was falling in her face every time she scanned the menu. “What about my birthday?”</p><p>“What’d you guys do?”</p><p>“When you say you guys to whom are you referring?”</p><p>Kate froze. He saw the color drain from her cheeks and then flush back up her neck again; she turned slowly towards him. “You and... your father?”</p><p>He shrugged, scratching his jaw with two fingers. He left it at that; they’d already talked about this.</p><p>“When you said you never celebrated, I just thought that meant like no parties or presents, just...”</p><p>“No celebration meant... well, no birthdays, Kate.”</p><p>She lowered the menu and walked towards him, her hips leading the way. She put a knee to the cushion beside his thigh and slid her fingers to his nape. Her thumb stroked over his cheekbone and she settled into his lap.</p><p>“No birthdays?” she murmured. Her thumb trailed under his eye and to his nose, stroked up along his eyebrows. “Ever?”</p><p>“No, baby. No birthdays. Don’t look at me like that. It’s not a big deal.”</p><p>“It’s a big deal to me,” she said softly, leaning in to brush a kiss to his eyebrow. “Let’s celebrate your birthday right now.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Dessert tonight from room service, and then you get a present.”</p><p>“What?” he laughed, framing her hips with his hands and settling her more firmly against him. “I get a present?”</p><p>“Hmm, yup. Anything you want.” She grinned at him and circled her thumb around his eye again. “You do know I’m talking sex, right?”</p><p>Castle laughed harder, running his hands up under the t-shirt, skimming her ribs. “Yeah, baby, I know. Okay, then. Birthday celebration for both of us.”</p><p>“Yeah?” she said, sitting up a little.</p><p>He dragged the back of his fingers along her stomach until he could skim the underside of her breasts. “Yeah,” he murmured. Her chest expanded on a deep breath and he took the opportunity to cup her breasts, firm and round, always fuller than he expected.</p><p>Kate leaned in and quickly kissed him, a harsh swipe of her tongue, and then she was climbing off his lap to grab the room phone, studying the menu again.</p><p>Castle sighed and dropped his palms to the top of his knees, watching her. Kate winked at him and picked up the phone, dialing down to room service. </p><p>“What are you get-”</p><p>“Oh, shit, they have beignets. Oh, fuck me, that’s what we’re getting.” Kate shot him a simmering, fantastic look - pure sex - even though he was pretty sure beignets were basically fried dough. </p><p>“All right,” he gave in. Besides after a couple of bites, he was pretty sure he could seduce her back to bed. Or sex in this chair. He wasn’t picky.</p><p>“You be thinking about what dirty thing you want me to do. I could suck - oh, hi.” Kate flushed and ducked her chin into the phone. “Yes, I’d like to order room service.”</p><p>Castle laughed, smirking at her even as she straightened her spine as she spoke to the hotel staff, her voice demanding respect despite her public announcement of doing dirty things to him.</p><p>She hung up and cast him a scathing look, but he was too aroused to care. “Come here.”</p><p>“You’re laughing at me.”</p><p>“Nope. I’m thinking of what I want to do to you for my birthday.”</p><p>“Yeah? You think of something?”</p><p>“Mm, yeah, sweetheart. I got the best thing in mind. And it’s perfect because it’s also a present for you.”<br/>“Well, of course it is,” she said quickly, dropping the phone to the cradle and coming back for him. “That’s why I said it.”</p><p>He grinned at her and Kate tossed the menu over her shoulder and settled onto his lap again, rocking into his crotch on purpose. His boxer briefs left no room for doubt about what he wanted.</p><p>“You gonna tell me?”</p><p>“Not yet,” he said. “Let you wonder.”</p><p>Kate narrowed her eyes at him and then she slid her fingers up under the leg of his boxers, hot and hard, her hand traveling straight to his cock.</p><p>He grunted and shifted his hips, closed his eyes to feel her tease him. Her fingers barely managed to touch his balls, skimming the tips lightly over his skin, back and forth until he was growling with it.</p><p>She leaned into his body and touched her mouth to his, sliding her tongue along his lips until he opened for her.</p><p>Castle stopped trying to be good and simply slid his hands up under her shirt and took it off, flinging it past her towards the floor. Her breasts touched his bare chest and her hair fell forward to skim his neck, her hand cupping his jaw even as she teased his balls.</p><p>He loved making out with her. Loved her hands on him and her tongue in his mouth. He loved touching her breasts and skimming her skin, loved the moans she made, the way she rubbed herself against him.</p><p>He loved being able to touch her, loved that he could finger her and not have to think about  the end result; there was no end. There was just her skin and the sounds she made.</p><p>At least until room service was delivered.</p><p>-----</p><p>Castle nudged his toes into the crease of her leg behind her knee. She toppled to one side and caught herself with a hand to the mattress, immediately kicking out against him. Castle caught her by the ankle and dragged her back towards him on the bed.</p><p>Beckett laughed; she was so tired that it sounded nearly like a giggle. About as close to giggling as Beckett ever got, and he really liked it. Really, really liked it.</p><p>Shit, he was a little tired himself.</p><p>“Let me go, you big bully.”</p><p>“You’re trying to eat the last beignet,” he muttered back. But she was slanting a look at him from under her eyelashes that he knew meant she was up to something.</p><p>Sure enough, Kate flipped and kneed him in the chest, pushing past him and stealing the fried doughnut. She shoved the first bite into her mouth, laughing at him around it, and he did the one thing his spy training had taught him - he went for the beignet at the source, ditching all rational rules of fair play and decency.</p><p>He opened his mouth and crashed into hers, biting off the beignet.</p><p>Kate grunted and pushed at his shoulders, but Castle bit down and swallowed the last of the sticky dessert, pulling away before she could protest. Kate gulped and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, staring at him.</p><p>“Just for that,” she murmured. “I get another one.”</p><p>“Another one,” he questioned. </p><p>“Poem,” she said shortly. Her jaw was set against him and her eyes ready to dart away, like she couldn’t believe she’d asked.</p><p>Castle grinned; it was fucking erotic to say nasty things to her while she licked her fingers and sucked syrup from her thumb, cleaning off the last of the dessert.</p><p>“A poem for my birthday?”</p><p>“For mine,” she said, pushing to her knees on the bed and crawling up towards him. Castle sat back and she straddled his lap, drawing her legs around his waist. Her arms rested lightly on his shoulders but her eyes drew over his mouth.</p><p>“Mm, okay. One more poem. But this one is an ode, Kate Beckett, and it requires some inspiration.”</p><p>“An ode,” she hummed, her voice tailing up like a question.</p><p>“Yes, so the shirt comes off.”</p><p>Immediately Kate was drawing the shirt over her head and tossing it aside, her hair spilling over her shoulders. With their fun tonight, it had fallen out of the choppy, flat-iron look and started curling at her neck with the sweat of sex.</p><p>Castle palmed her hips and ran his hands up to her breasts, bearing the full weight of them and pushing them together to press his mouth to her nipples.</p><p>She let out a little sigh but her hands trailed down his chest and plucked at the waistband of his boxer briefs. </p><p>“Mm, not like that,” he said, lips brushing the so-soft skin of her breasts. “Turn around. I need to see you if I’m going to be poetic.”</p><p>Kate sat up, studying him for a moment, and then she slid off his lap and presented him with her back. Castle scooted to the headboard and drew her with him, sliding his legs out straight and tugging her between them.</p><p>Kate rubbed her ass into his groin and he let her hear his low moan, his arms tightening around her body. She was warm and soft in all the best places, strong in every other, her body a continuously moving animal in his embrace. He palmed her breasts and momentarily forgot all words.</p><p>“Poem,” she said sharply, her breath coming fast and filling his hands. He squeezed her nipples and kissed the side of her neck, licking the skin until he found a trace of sweetness from dessert.</p><p>“An Ode to Kate,” he murmured, letting his teeth graze her. He stroked along her ribs and down to her thighs, spread them apart. “Your body is a land I am conquering. The soldiers along the walls raise their weapons to meet me, but I have seduced the queen.”</p><p>She let out a little noise and he dipped his fingers between her legs.</p><p>“How sweet, a land flowing with milk and honey,” he murmured, touching his tongue to her neck. </p><p>Kate mewled and he skimmed through the syrup between her legs, that silky cream that thickened whenever he got close.</p><p>“She is ready to battle, but my sword is unsheathed and ready to wound, and she bleeds for me, crying out at the first touch.”</p><p>Castle slid his fingers inside her and Kate’s body rose up, a desperate noise in the back of her throat. He cupped her breast and squeezed, tightened his fingers around her nipple to twist and grind. She immediately worked her hips back into him, excruciating amazing pressure.</p><p>He bit the side of her neck and her head rolled back to his shoulder. “Always, always ready to do violence to me, even in poetry,” she said.</p><p>“Fucking is violent,” he growled back, plunging his fingers inside her. “And you crave it.” </p><p>She cried out and arched, and he scraped his thumb nail against her clit.</p><p>Kate shattered before he even got to the rest of the poem.</p><p>----- </p><p>-----</p><p>She woke to feel his fingers sliding around her tattoo, over and over, sensitizing her skin to match the raw sting of the new ink.</p><p>She shifted to move off of him, but he wrapped his arm around her back and kissed the top of her shoulder. Her breasts were crushed to his chest, the sweat-licked and humid air between them almost too much.</p><p>She flinched when his nail caught the top of the bear’s inked head, and he paused. She could feel him thinking, his mind working and turning over, and she knew he was studying the reddened skin where the tattoo branded her. For always.</p><p>Don’t, she thought. Be smart and just don’t-</p><p>“I hurt you.”</p><p>His heart was beating under her cheek. “No.”</p><p>“I forgot you’d just gotten this. Didn’t it hurt?”</p><p>“Maybe. No.”</p><p>“It’s so raw, sweetheart.” His finger circled again, like he was herding her in a direction he wanted her to go, circling. “It’s angry raw. Should take care of this. I should take care of you.”</p><p>Shit.</p><p>His palm pressed lightly over the tattoo and his fingers felt good against the heat of her skin. </p><p>“Believe me,” she rasped. “I’ve been taken care of.” She didn’t think she was going to walk right tomorrow.</p><p>His fingers circled, danced across the Russian words, traced the outline of the bear. It really did burn, the bastard; he could stop touching it any time now. </p><p>“Through the cool and wavy hazes...”</p><p>She went still, breath stolen, her body going rigid against his. No. No, he wouldn’t - he hadn’t-</p><p>But he kept quoting. “Cuts the moon her slow way; On the glades of sadness, endless... Her distressing light.”</p><p>Beckett closed her eyes but it wouldn’t disappear. It wasn’t fair that he knew the whole poem, that he’d memorized it for her, that her solitary grief now had a participant, a witness.</p><p>It held too much accountability. She couldn’t take a grief observed.</p><p>“One can hear... a soul’s sadness, strong,” he murmured.</p><p>“Shut the fuck up,” she gasped, jerking away from him. She stumbled as she tried to get out of bed, her knee landing hard on his inside thigh, but Castle was making it impossible. He was making it absolutely fucking impossible.</p><p>He caught her before she could fall face first to the floor, caught her with that strong, broad arm around her ribs, hauling her back into the bed.</p><p>“Kate.”</p><p>“Let go of me.” She gnashed her teeth to keep from crying but he was draping himself over her, the skin at her hip beginning to throb with the awareness of its fresh ink, raw, painful, just like her damn heart.</p><p>He didn’t say anything, didn’t apologize, just pressed her down into the mattress and held himself over her, immobile in the face of her struggling.</p><p>Fuck.</p><p>She was crying. Damn it. No. No-</p><p>His forearm braced against her shoulders, his hips pinning hers so that she felt his cock at her ass, her legs tangled in his. He was hard - he was always fucking hard - but it wasn’t insistent, wasn’t anything other than his usual state of half-wanting her.</p><p>And that might have been worse. If he’d just fuck her, take her, then she could push right into it and out the other side.</p><p>Kate buried her face in the pillow to soak the tears, and then she felt his lips at the back of her neck, fingers brushing her hair out of the way. And then his teeth, which somehow made the tenderness of his kiss okay.</p><p>She was so fucking messed up. He was going to be here for three months straight. What the hell was she going to do? She was never going to survive him.</p><p>“When I looked it up, the Pushkin poem, I found out it was only a fragment. Unfinished. He never went back to it. It made these lines somehow all the more lonely.”</p><p>Why did he do this to her? Why did he fuck her like a whore and then kiss her like his wife? She couldn’t bear it. She needed to be the whore, needed raw and primal and unemotional, she needed to not have this man pressing his body over hers and whispering softness into her ear like his words could seduce her.</p><p>They could. They already had. She was doomed.</p><p>“Only a fragment, sweetheart.” His lips touched her jaw; she kept her face in the pillow. “It means too much.”</p><p>She gulped down a breath, another, and then turned her head so that her cheek laid on the damp spot on the pillow. She could see him just at the peripheral of her vision, feel him laid out on top of her. “If I’d known you spoke Russian, I’d have done it in Chinese.”</p><p>“I can only speak Chinese, not read it. So you might have me there.”</p><p>She groaned, closing her eyes, because he was serious.</p><p>“Your life more than-”<br/>“Don’t,” she growled. “Don’t fucking psychoanalyze a poem, Richard.”</p><p>“I’ve been reading your books,” he said suddenly. “When you’re gone and I come home, I pull one off the shelf and I read what you’ve already read.”</p><p>“I know,” she muttered.</p><p>“You leave notes sometimes. In the margins. I read them.”</p><p>“So?”</p><p>“Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge. I just finished it. The end is...”</p><p>“Why are we talking about the damn books you keep stealing from me?”</p><p>“‘She whose youth had seemed to teach that happiness’-”</p><p>She wanted to shut his mouth; she wanted to fucking flip him over and press her crotch to his mouth and make him use that tongue for good rather than this evil of flaying her alive.</p><p>“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”</p><p>She hated him.</p><p>He kissed her neck again, his tongue touching the crease where her turned head folded her skin. Goosebumps raced up her back to meet him.</p><p>“Do I make you happy?”</p><p>She sucked in a breath, pushed her face back to the pillow, words tangled in her throat.</p><p>“When you come for me, does it feel like a drama of pain?” His hips thrust against her, a reminder.</p><p>“Rick,” she moaned.</p><p>“Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between happiness and pain,” he murmured. “When I’m with you. You make everything ache.”</p><p>She was crying again. She hated him. He was making her cry on her birthday, her fucking birthday, and her mother-</p><p>“I love being with you, Kate. I love that you have episodes and dramas. I’ve never had that. Life has always been by rote - a set of prescribed standards, a shopping list. No pain, but no happiness.”</p><p>What?</p><p>“It’s not enough for me, Kate. It’s not enough to sleepwalk through my life. And I know you have pain, I know I make it hurt sometimes, but can it be - could we be happy?”</p><p>She wished he hadn’t asked her that.</p><p>“Don’t answer,” he murmured. “I already know. You like the pain.”</p><p>Oh God, she did. Was that why she couldn’t stand to not have him?</p><p>-----<br/>-----</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When her hand came back to wrap her fingers around his cock, he wasn’t even surprised. He let her push him back to the mattress and straddle his side, her fingers stroking him ready, hot, strong. He’d been expecting it; he got too deep into her and she grabbed hold and took control again.</p><p>He’d been expecting the move but he wasn’t going to allow it. He’d fucked her pretty hard all night long - the whole week really - and he was learning her, he knew her trick. He knew her too well, and he could do this.</p><p>When she widened her legs to take him, he grabbed her thigh tightly, his fingers bruising, and said, “No.”</p><p>She froze.</p><p>“Suck me off,” he told her, cupping the back of her neck and pushing her down.</p><p>She resisted for a moment, her eyes liquid dark on his. “No.”</p><p>“No?”</p><p>“I want to play with you. Like you’ve been playing with me.” </p><p>Emotionally? That’s what she meant, and he could tell by the flash of tight fear and the pinch of her mouth that she hadn’t meant to give that away either.</p><p>“Play with me,” he murmured. “Yeah, I like the pain too, baby.”</p><p>Her eyes snapped back to his and this time her body relaxed, her lips nearly smiling. “I know you do.”</p><p>Her fingers tightened around his cock and he knew he was in for it; she wanted to make him regret it. Punishing her with words.</p><p>But it was her birthday and her father was an alcoholic she couldn’t depend on and she needed some damn words. She needed to know the truth of this. She couldn’t keep going weekend to weekend wondering why he was coming back to her, wondering if he was coming back.</p><p>She crawled over him then, perched on his chest with her wet cunt rubbing against him. She scooted her way down, slowly, her hands planted on his shoulders so that her nails dug into his skin. She rubbed herself against him, purposefully, her hair spilling around her shoulders, and her tongue touching her teeth like a smile.</p><p>He loved her, he loved her. Oh God, if she didn’t move, he was going to actually tell her. </p><p>He was going to ruin all his hard work if she didn’t start this.</p><p>“Turn around,” he gruffed, reaching for her hips. She lifted an eyebrow, apparently not understanding him, and he grabbed her by the upper arm and tried to turn her around on top of him. “Turn around and put your mouth on me, let me eat you out.”</p><p>He had her already half twisted when he got a good grip on her thigh up by his shoulder; she was making some kind of questioning noise in the back of her throat, but Castle lifted his head and touched his tongue to the curve of her ass.</p><p>She gasped and her knee hit his ribs.</p><p>Castle scraped his teeth at the back of her thigh, moved his mouth in towards the rich smell of her cunt in his face. He spoke into the crease of her ass. “I want your mouth on me, Kate. Don’t you want the same?”</p><p>“Fuck,” she groaned.</p><p>He touched his mouth to her and she jolted, but her hands landed on his thighs and suddenly they were perfectly sixty-nined. Her fingers circled the base of his cock even as she pushed her hips back into his face.</p><p>He spread the cheeks of her ass with his hands, baring her to his mouth, and she swallowed him down in response.</p><p>“Fuck,” he croaked, burying his face in her ass. She choked on his cock, too much, he had thrust into her throat, already unable to control it, she was gagging on him and sucking at the same time, fucking going for it.</p><p>He bit the soaked edge of her cunt, sucked the curled lip hidden between her thighs. He found himself eating her out, gnawing at the juice, the soaked folds, using his teeth because her mouth was so damn tight around him, so hot, her throat working the head of his cock.</p><p>He’d never been so far down, never felt her like this, burning him, branding him with her mouth even as his nose buried deep in her cunt.</p><p>God, she smelled like sex. She smelled like him. He’d fucked her too hard; he’d made her hurt. They had the next three months - did he have to treat her like this?</p><p>He pressed a finger into her, not sure where until she moaned around his cock. So tight, she was so tight at her ass, squeezing his finger just like his cock, a loop of continuous, burning arousal. </p><p>She worked her hips back into him, and he pushed his tongue into her cunt, his own hand getting in his way. When he withdrew his finger from her ass, she groaned around his cock in a way that made her throat vibrate.</p><p>He was going to come. Right now. Holy fuck. No. No, he couldn’t-</p><p>He shot his come into the sudden coolness of the air, his body bowed in an agony of need, Kate braced on his chest. </p><p>When his back dropped to the mattress, buzzing with the force of that orgasm, he realized Kate must have known, sensed it, felt it tighten and release in him. She skimmed her fingers through the mess on his thighs and then slid off of him.</p><p>He didn’t even know if she’d come yet. He had no idea. That never happened.</p><p>Kate sat at his shoulder as he stared dumbly at her. She lifted her thigh and laid her leg over his chest and then she leaned back against the headboard and closed her eyes.</p><p>Was he supposed to-</p><p>She dipped her fingers between her spread legs and stroked herself.</p><p>“Oh, fuck,” he gasped.</p><p>She went slowly, running her fingers through her folds and spreading her cream around. Her breasts gleamed in the light and he saw his own come dotting her skin. He shifted onto his side, propped himself up on his elbow, and he watched her tease herself.</p><p>Her lips were pink, both places. Pink and swollen. Castle shifted in to kiss her sex, touching his mouth to those swollen lips, tasting the juice around her fingers. She didn’t move him away. She kept sliding around in her cunt and he curled his tongue around to help her, his cheek against her inside thigh.</p><p>Her free hand came to the back of his head but she didn’t push; she lightly scratched his scalp, pushed her fingers down to his nape and back up through his hair, stroking him as well. It was more erotic than his cock down her throat, and finally her fingers went still between her legs and he was allowed control.</p><p>Kate moaned and her hips rose like a wave into his mouth. He arrowed his tongue inside her and cupped her ass to tilt her into him. She was circling his ear with her wet fingers as if giving him the pattern for his movement between her legs. He circled her clit in the same way she stroked his ear, pushed inside her again when she bucked into his mouth.</p><p>“Oh,” she moaned. “Oh.”</p><p>He’d never heard her like this before. She sounded like she was going to faint, like she couldn’t bear how sweet it was. He wanted her to believe in him, wanted her to remember the way his cheeks scraped her inside thigh and his tongue caught her cream. He wanted her to remember his face between her thighs and how easy it was to come.</p><p>He wanted her to have him.</p><p>She ran both hands through his hair and cradled his head against her groin, her body lifting and rocking, her orgasm rolling out of her in long undulations.</p><p>She cried his name and came a second time, back to back, this one more forceful, her thighs pressed hard against his ears, her fingers digging into his neck, her body rigid. He drank her arousal and pushed two fingers inside her and he found the rough place where her body yearned for him.</p><p>She gasped and jerked, and he curled his fingers there, reminding her her of the way his cock abraded that spot. She was whining, mewling, her body dashing itself against his face and impaling itself on his fingers, and he rubbed hard at those inner walls until she came a third time, finally, shaking as she shattered.</p><p>-----</p><p>He laid over her between her spread legs, long enough for her to come back to him, long enough for her to cup the sides of his face and kiss him. </p><p>It was a soft kiss, a beautiful kiss; it was the way she told him she was happy.</p><p>When he tilted his forehead to hers, she breathed falteringly against him, and her fingers curled at his ear. The tenderness in her body as she cradled him made him want to cry.</p><p>They could be happy; he knew they could. Together they could do this for real, no matter how difficult it was. Maybe because it was that difficult.</p><p>He kissed the corner of her mouth and then shifted off of her, drawing her down to the mattress and tucking himself alongside her. She turned into him, drawing her knee up and bracing his ribs, stroking the soft hair at the nape of his neck. His cheek was pressed to her shoulder and he kissed the dust of dried sweat at the slope of her chest, licked the salt from his lips.</p><p>She curled her fingers along his ear and down to his neck, trailed at his shoulder. “Mm, good birthday?” she murmured.</p><p>“That was the best present I’ve ever had,” he sighed.</p><p>She laughed. “Baby, you said you never got any presents.”</p><p>“I had a GI Joe once,” he said, speaking before he thought. </p><p>“You did?” She went still. “From...”</p><p>“I.. her, I guess.”</p><p>Kate was so still under him, but it wasn’t the stiffness of a wound; it was the stillness of a predator calculating and he didn’t know what that meant.</p><p>“Her?” she said softly.</p><p>“Yeah. I guess it would have to be. I never thought of it before. Just now - like this image of carrying the thing around.”</p><p>“When you were little?”</p><p>“Mm, must have been.” He skimmed his fingers along her side, loving how their legs tangled, how her body was nearly seamless with his own. </p><p>“How little?”</p><p>How many questions did she have? He chuckled and snaked her hair away from his mouth, stroking it back behind her neck, tucked between the pillow and her skin. “Uh. I don’t know. I was five when she quit me.”</p><p>“She quit you.”</p><p>“Yeah. It’s a phrase. Means-”</p><p>“I know what it means,” she huffed, but there was a laugh under it. “Bastard. You were five - you’ve told me that before. I just meant - you haven’t said much about before that, baby.”</p><p>He wriggled his chest against hers and she laughed again; he liked that sound. “I don’t remember it, really. You know that. Stuff sometimes comes up. Like this. The GI Joe doll. It was cool. I liked it a lot.”</p><p>“And then you grew up to be one,” she hummed, her fingers dancing down his spine. “Cute.”</p><p>“Guess I did.”</p><p>“Your mom.”</p><p>He lifted his head and frowned at her. “What about her?”</p><p>“No, nothing,” she murmured. Her fingers combed through the bangs that flopped forward on his forehead. “Your hair has gotten so long, baby. You never cut it any more.”</p><p>“Mm, I like it when you run your fingers through it,” he admitted, giving her a sly grin.</p><p>She grinned back. “I like it just like this. The buzz right here is nice though,” she said, rubbing the nape of his neck. He hadn’t buzzed it in a while. “But yeah, running my fingers through it.”</p><p>Castle laid his head back down against her shoulder, partially on the pillow to keep from crushing her. She seemed to be cradling him, touching him, fingers up and down his spine. </p><p>“Castle, your mom-”</p><p>“My mother really isn’t - I mean, Kate, I just don’t know enough.”</p><p>“Is she still alive? What happened to her?”</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“Do you... want to know?”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Kate sighed and he shifted, cupping her hip and drawing his hand along her belly so that her skin shivered. “Castle, I... just thought maybe you...”</p><p>He traced circles around her belly button and slid up along her sternum between her breasts. She had closed her eyes, but she hadn’t let go of the thread of their conversation.</p><p>“Thought you might want to know. Have answers for why,” she whispered.</p><p>Oh. Wasn’t that what she wanted? </p><p>If he had any hope of earning her forgiveness for poking into her mother’s murder, for coming alongside that case and cracking it open, if he had any hope of her, then this might be the way.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t even know how to look.”</p><p>Her fingers at his hair curled to hang on to his neck, to make him pause. He glanced up at her, saw she was biting her bottom lip. “I could help.”</p><p>“What?” Yes.</p><p>“If you - a mother is a - you shouldn’t lose her, if you can find her.”</p><p>What the fuck did he care for a woman who had quit him? No, no, he cared only for Kate. If she wanted to do this, if it mattered to her, he’d do anything she wanted. But he had to play this right.</p><p>“You could... I don’t know, Kate. I don’t anything about her. I just - well, I know her last name.”</p><p>But no one else was supposed to know he knew. It was his last cover identity, his refuge. And suddenly he saw where this could go so very badly for him. </p><p>“No, hey, Rick. It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Believe me, I get it. I can do it quietly, love. You won’t - he won’t know.”</p><p>Castle tightened instinctively, propped himself up on his elbow to study her. “He always knows.”</p><p>“I won’t do it online. I’ll do it old school, on foot and in person, baby. I promise. I know you don’t want him... involved. I understand.”</p><p>Fuck, it was so much more than that. But he really didn’t think his father even cared about the woman, wherever she was, let alone have her tagged or tailed. </p><p>“Okay,” he said then, nodding at Kate. “You can - do whatever you do. Be a detective.” He grinned and she smiled back, amused but shaking her head at him for it.</p><p>“Okay. I will. What - do you remember her name?”</p><p>“Martha Rodgers,” he said quickly, faintly surprised at how the name said out loud made his heart pound.</p><p>Kate cupped his face and leaned in to kiss him; it was soft again, sweet.</p><p>It was how she told him she was happy too.</p><p>What was a cover ID in the face of Kate’s happiness?</p><p>-----</p><p>It seemed a point of pride or honor with her to stay up with him, hour for hour, whenever they had these weekends together, so Castle feigned sleep hoping that she'd follow suit. It was strangely soporific anyway, lying curled along her side with her palm warm at his neck and her other arm at his lower back. With his eyes closed and conversation ceased, the darkness of the room sifted the city light and bathed them in a surreal glow.</p><p>He thought she'd finally fallen asleep.</p><p>Sex with her was more than the sum of its parts. When it was quiet like this and he could hear and feel her heart beating under his ear, he always came back to the nuances of them, the mystery of them. When he had her, when they fucked or made love or possessed each other, the flush of her skin sealed to his made his nerve endings feel alive, and the sweep of her eyelashes at his cheek when they were so very close, so close to the end that they strained towards each other, felt like electricity in his bones.</p><p>When she arched and cried his name, when his cock couldn't go any deeper, when she drew her knee up and dug her heel into his ass to push him harder, his whole being turned inside out to meet her there. And the part that drove him crazy, the part that had him addicted, the thing that forced him to his knees to beg her for more was that she was in it too.</p><p>She was right there with him.</p><p>Even if she couldn't handle tenderness, even if love was a four-letter word, she was so very present with him in the muck and mire of this thing that he had no doubts about her.</p><p>When she had insinuated that he was fucking other women and he'd had that lightning bolt of horror thinking maybe she didn't know at all, there had been a moment where his betrayal had felt so great and enormous that it had been impossible.</p><p>Impossible to fathom that she couldn't know - because he felt her here. He felt her move with him, meet him; he felt her cut open her guts for him and spill them out steaming to the floor where his own guts already had spilled. There was no difference between them when they fucked, there was one beating heart and they shared it together through the climax of their own creation.</p><p>Which made sense, the way it was when they weren't in bed. They were two people with half of one heart, walking around bloodied and damaged, ragged chunks of muscle missing where there should have been a beating, beautiful organ.</p><p>No wonder he kept hurting her, failing her, disappointing her. No wonder she kept distancing him, putting him off, misunderstanding him. Neither of them managed very well apart. </p><p>If they could fuck all the time. If it was only about how to make her come or get her off, if it was how expert her mouth was, how clever her hands, how gorgeous her body when she threw herself against his cock or came apart around his fingers, then they would never have a problem - a whole heart, beating entwined.</p><p>They were going to have to figure it out, this half-hearted thing, now that they had known the fullness of being complete finally. His clandestine work was vital and serious, but he wasn't doing a very good job at it like this, limping around, the ache in his chest enough to bring him to his knees. And she couldn't keep throwing herself at the police force or chase after a suspect down a sewer when she didn't have the heart to force the blood through her body and keep her strong.</p><p>They were both damaged. They'd known it, and buried it, and kept it plastered over for so long that now it was going to take some serious work to knit their pieces together. But once together...</p><p>It was already so beautiful. It was already the best thing that had ever happened to him. </p><p>He'd do the work for her. He would do whatever it took, sacrifice whatever cost, because he knew that somehow he was the one who'd gotten less of that torn asunder heart, while she had the throbbing, pulsing mess that felt too much, still writhing from suddenly severed nerves.</p><p>He'd do the work because he was used to doing the work and succeeding. Maybe not emotionally - that had never been his thing - but in all other aspects, he knew how to show up.</p><p>And for the emotional maturity necessary - he'd make himself better for her. Whatever he lacked from her, he'd never know it because he'd never had it. So he had a natural immunity to the usual hurt feelings and bitter fights that most people went through. He was better conditioned for it, and so he could bear the load.</p><p>He had three months to find a way to prove himself, to shore up her crumbling strength, and to figure out a more permanent solution. It could be done. It had to be done.</p><p>Castle laid his palm at the beautiful flare of her hip in the soft glow of lights, and he smoothed that gorgeous skin. He felt the heat between her legs like she was ready for him, waiting for him, even in sleep but he only skimmed his touch down to her thigh and cupped the back of her knee, settling in.</p><p>He would be ready when she woke.</p><p>-----</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>